New Order
by Scyphi
Summary: A new dawn has occurred over Cyberspace as everyone rebuilds from Hacker's campaign of chaos. But the loss of a life is being mourned. A life that hasn't really been lost. And a new evil is coming... please R&R!
1. Prologue

Summary: A new dawn has occurred over Cyberspace as everyone rebuilds from Hacker's campaign of chaos. People are trying new things. Friends are achieveing new roles in life. But a the loss of a life is being mourned. A life that hasn't really been lost. And a new evil is coming...

Rating: T

A story that takes the Cyberchase universe in a new direction. Picks up from where "Neutramatter" left off. A few surprises in store for you all. I begin with a brief and to-the-point prologue that's really more for new readers than anything. Next chapter will actually take about a month after this.

For new readers who want to start at the beginning of my series of Cyberchase fanfics, the order is as follows: "The Time Traveler", "Parallelism", "Mishap", "Backup Support", "Devil's Advocate", "Breeched", and "Neutramatter". It is highly recommended that you at least read "Neutramatter" first before reading "New Order." Enjoy!

CYBERCHASE

NEW ORDER

1.

Prologue

"If I may have your attention please, we are ready to begin."

Matt turned and glanced at the podium standing in front of the monument. It was actually a bit unneeded now, because the person who was going to do the speaking wasn't a real person. Dr. Marbles was going to say a few things in dedication of the monument, but at the last moment and for reasons unknown, Motherboard had taken his place. As such a screen had been set up behind the podium for her to use, which, quite frankly, looked odd.

"To begin with," Motherboard began, "I would like to thank you all for coming here. I am very pleased you all could make it, and that we could fit you all."

She scanned the crowd that had gathered at the podium, and as she did so, Matt did the same. In addition to himself, Jackie, Digit, Alex, Peter, Lara, and Dr. Marbles, there was a wide variety of people. A good deal of them Matt recognized from his many adventures in Cyberspace, such as Shari Spotter and the Crab Prince from Aquari-Yum. But there was also many he didn't recognize.

But, with a pang of guilt and sorrow, he knew there was one person that should be here, but wasn't.

In fact, it was because of her they were all gathered here today.

"Inez Garcia," Motherboard continued again suddenly, "was a great ally to Cyberspace. She was very intelligent, and despite her young age, very capable. She had proven herself to be a brilliant helper, and a friend to everyone on many occasions, and once even helped to save Cyberspace from total takeover. She would frequently put her life before others, risking it constantly. Yet she always seemed to come out of each scenario unscathed. That is, until now."

Matt hung his head, and not for the first time shook his head in disbelief. She couldn't be gone. She had always been there, as a friend and as so much more. She had faced death straight in the eye, at times without even knowing it, and had always managed to come back out of it alive and well. Maybe it was a matter of luck, and it merely ran out finally. But regardless, it seemed impossible Inez was dead.

"As you are all aware, Hacker was recently defeated once and for all, destroyed along with his ship and his most evil invention ever, the neutramatter cannon over the cybersite of Sensible Flats." Motherboard went on, using a graver tone than before. "This is a matter to celebrate indeed, but you all need to realize it did not come without a price. In addition to the lives of others who have been lost throughout Hacker's campaign of chaos, Inez Garcia lost her life while fighting Hacker. And of all the lives lost, hers will be the one most missed. By everyone."

She stopped to look over everyone again, and then, as if receiving inspiration from out there, suddenly looked out into the depths of Cyberspace. Matt, mostly out of curiosity, followed her gaze, peering out beyond the open balcony they stood upon, surrounding the monument. Hanging out there in all directions was the brilliant green-black glow of Cyberspace. Each blinking light that could be seen was a Cybersite. Out of all of them, Control Central was the closest, only being a couple cybermiles or less away. It was a truly inspirational view; Inez would've loved it. But it was the fact she wouldn't get to that prevented Matt from enjoying it.

"Today, we dedicate this monument in her honor." Motherboard said, motioning to the structure behind her. "So we can all remember her, and remember what she did for us all. And here it will stand for untold years, continuing to do so. So I ask you, that whenever you look upon this monument, remember who it was built to remember."

And with that, Motherboard concluded her statement. Matt half expected the crowd to applaud or cheer at the end, but a long moment of eerie silence fell. Matt realized the crowd all felt like he did; saddened at the lost of such a significant person. At least, they all felt like he did to a certain extent. But it was enough. Matt was touched so many people could relate to his pain.

As for the monument itself, it looked wonderful. Originally, it had been planned to build a statue in Inez's likeness, but then it was agreed that seemed too vain, and almost cheesy. Instead, the monument was shaped as a eight-pointed star, three dimensionally built so one could see all eight points no matter what direction you look at it. It had been built out of a special, reflective material that made it seem almost glow. Dr. Marbles had indicated that the material had cost several snelfus to build, yet it was worth every penny.

Matt had to agree. It looked very pretty, and as Inez loved stars of all sorts, she would've been very touched to see it. If only she could. With really meaning to, his eyes traveled down to the base of the monument, where a simple plaque had been placed. It read:

Inez Garica

May she rest in peace


	2. Changing Times

First off, sorry this is a little late, but FanFiction's annoying glitch with the log-in system prevented me from posting until now.

Second, here's chapter two, the first full-length chapter of "New Order". Like I said eariler, it takes place a month after the prologue, and it's the first of several chapters that will be solely present to show to the reader what's changed in Cyberspace during that one month. With a bit of mystery thrown in to spice things up, of course. This chapter is really kind of ho-hum, though. Anyway, enjoy. :)

2.

Changing Times

_One month later..._

"Okay, I think I see the problem. Hand me the three-bit quarter wrench."

"The three-six border flange?"

"No, no, the three-bit quarter wrench."

"Ah, okay. The thirteen-bit quarter wrench, then?"

"No! The _three-bit quarter wrench!_ Anything more, and it'll be bigger than I am!"

Lara held up the wrench in question and compared it in size to her helper for a moment, squinting through one eye to judge the size better.

"Yeah, I guess you're right." she remarked.

Joseph the mouse rolled his eyes and held out a paw. "You going to hand it to me or not?" he asked indignantly.

"Sorry." Lara said, and held the wrench that was roughly about the same size as Joseph out to him.

Joseph took it in both paws, levered it around, and then jammed it into the exposed pocket of machinery and circuitry. Fitting it over the unseen bolt, Joseph started to turn the wrench, tightening the bolt. Lara watched curiously, seeing the mouse strain to turn the wrench.

"You want me to help?" Lara asked innocently after a moment.

"I can do this!" Joseph barked, and continued to twist the wrench on his own.

Lara nodded slowly, and kept her distance. "I hope this works." she said to change the subject. "We've been working on this all day."

"Don't worry." Joseph said. "I followed all the lines and everything. As soon as I adjust this valve then the CSC can get their direct line of kryoxide." With a grunt, he gave the wrench one last turn, and then set it aside. "Okay, that should do it. Call upstairs and tell them they can open the line now."

Lara nodded and pulled out her SKWAK pad. "Go ahead and open the line now." she said. There was a pause. "Guys? Hello?" she fiddled with her SKWAK for a moment. "I don't seem to be getting a connection." she noted, and with a sigh adjusted her channel. "Come in Major Hardson."

"Hardson here." came the reply. "That kryoxide ready yet?"

"We've got things set up here." Lara reported, glancing out the nearby window where the CSEDS's additions to the lower portion of Control Central were clearly visible. "But we can't seem to call back upstairs to tell them to let the kryoxide flow.

"Okay." Hardson said.

"I think the problem might be on your end."

"Oh. Okay, give me a moment, and I'll check."

Lara sighed and lowered her SKWAK as she waited for a reply. "You'd think they'd have the sense to avoid messing up the systems for Control Central." she muttered.

"Hey, the circuitry for this place is complex!" Joseph said, motioning the open panel behind him. "To be perfectly honest, I'm not surprised. Besides, they're adding on a lot to Control Central."

"Making it a real militaristic place." Lara muttered.

"That's the idea behind this base the CSEDS is building." Joseph said.

"Yeah, but do we need it?" Lara asked. "Hacker's gone! Cyberspace is at peace! We probably need that military support less than ever now!"

"Well, it couldn't hurt." Joseph said with a shrug. "The only thing I've got to complain about it is that we have to call this base Cyberspace Command now, and stop calling the Cyberspace Exploration and Defense Society that. Which irks me because it's much easier to say CSC than CSEDS."

"I guess they want to avoid the confusion." Lara suggested.

"Okay, I'm back with a report!" Hardson's voice announced suddenly from Lara's SKWAK pad. "We figured out your problem!"

"And?" Lara prompted, turning her attention back to the SKWAK.

"We, uh, bumped a wire when adding the CSC to Control Central's inter-cybersite communications array." Hardson admitted reluctantly. "All communications from your level down is out of commission until we reconnect things."

"So do it!" Joseph exclaimed.

"Would love to, but we can't seem to find the wire we bumped." Hardson said. "Sorry."

Joseph sighed. "I suppose I can run up there real quick and tell them." he said, ducking into the opening in the panel.

"You sure?" Lara asked the mouse. "I could probably run up there real quick."

"Yes, but I can go even faster this way." Joseph said as he vanished into the circuitry and started traveling up to Control Central's command deck.

* * *

Matt stared at the chess board for a long moment, then finally moved one of his pieces. "Check." he announced plainly.

Across the board sat Widget, who stopped to scratch his head for a very long moment. "Dang it, I'm losing, aren't I?" the little cybird asked innocently.

"Yeah." Matt said, but he didn't seem enthused about it.

Widget thought for a very long moment, then moved his king over a square. Matt countered the move quickly by slapping down a bishop right next to Widget's king.

"Checkmate." Matt announced.

Widget sighed. "Best out of fifteen?" he asked innocently.

Matt shook his head and leaned back. "No." he said. "Fourteen straight games of chess is good enough for me."

"Okay." Widget said, and started clearing the pieces. "Y'know, I didn't even think you played chess until today."

"I didn't." Matt said, then hung his head. "But Inez did."

Widget sighed. "We all miss her." he assured him.

"I know." Matt said, and shook his head. "I just can't get over it though. She's actually gone."

A moment of silence fell.

"So, uh...and I realize this may be a bad time, but who's going to replace her?" Widget asked.

"Huh?" Matt asked, puzzled.

"Well, the Cybersquad has always had four members, but now it's down by one." Widget reasoned. "I figured someone would step in to fill Inez's place."

Matt was silent for a moment. "You know, I hadn't thought about that." he admitted. "I suppose I should, shouldn't I?"

"Well, there's power in numbers, right?" Widget asked. "Besides, Inez was helpful to have around. Shouldn't she be replaced?"

"It would be the least we could do." Matt admitted.

"I'd volunteer, but I'd think I'd be too small." Widget remarked, glancing down at his little body.

"Too little for what?"

The two turned to see Joseph pull himself out from a space in a control panel, breathless.

"Joseph!" Matt exclaimed, coming to the mouse's side and scooping up in his hand.

"What was that about being too little?" Joseph repeated.

"Oh that!" Widget said. "That was just me saying I was too little to join the Cybersquad."

"See, we're thinking about replacing...Inez." Matt said, and frowned at himself for saying it.

"Is that all?" Joseph asked, and then thought about it. "I wouldn't mind being a part of the Cybersquad, but I guess I have the same problem, don't I?"

"Yeah, you kinda do, Joseph, no offense." Matt said politely.

"So unless you're willing to turn you and the rest of the gang all into mice..."

"Which we aren't."

"...then I guess you'll have to find someone else."

"Well, don't worry, I have a few ideas." Matt said, setting Joseph down again. "But why are you up here, Joseph? I thought you were downstairs helping Lara set up the CSC."

"I was." Joseph said. "I came up to tell you that we're ready for you to turn on the kryoxide main."

"Why didn't you just call us with Lara's SKWAK pad?" Widget asked.

"Because inter-cybersite communications, SKWAK or otherwise, is currently down." Joseph said. "Hardson and her gang jiggled something loose and can't figure out what it was."

"Typical." Matt said, rolling his eyes, and leaned over and gave a knob twist. "There, done. Better go tell Lara."

Joseph let out an exasperated sigh, and clambered back into the space he had entered from. Matt watched him go, then turned to leave.

"Where are you going, Matt?" Widget asked.

"To find Inez's replacement." Matt called back as he stepped through the door.


	3. Expedition

And another chapter showing what has happened during that one month, this time featuring Dr. Marbles, Alex, Alex's Dad (surprise!), and Hardson's cohorts, Davidson and McKinsey, as well as Cyantis. I also leave a little cookie for future chapters. ;)

3.

Expedition

It had rapidly become Dr. Marbles favorite thing to do each day.

Walking briskly, he reached the bottom of a hill, and without stopping, proceeded to climb the hill. He didn't stop until he reached it's peak. Once there, he paused, took a deep, refreshing, breath, then turned around and looked back down the way he had come. And he savored the sight he saw.

Cyantis.

With Hacker finally defeated and Cyberspace safe once again, the cybersite's barriers, shields, and cloak could finally be lowered, and access to the fabled lost cybersite be granted to all. And no one hesitated to make use of it. Cyborgs from all over came to see the site and what was in it. It was rapidly becoming a popular tourist location, although the best was that entrance was free.

But for Marbles, it went much deeper than that. The moment the site was opened to everyone, scientists, historians, anthropologists, archeologists, virtually every scientist in Cyberspace, wanted to come and explore and study the site, as did Marbles himself. So, with Motherboard's authorization, Marbles organized the Cyantis Expedition, a group of united scientists from all over Cyberspace all working to learn as much as possible from the secrets the site withheld.

And they had already discovered a lot. And there was plenty more to discover. Marbles knew that they all had their work cut out for them. But for the moment, Marbles simply wished to stand there on the hill and look out at the Cyantis's skyline and savor the view.

"Dr. Marbles."

Marbles sighed, and turned to face the speaker, a fellow scientist cyborg. "Yes, Amy, what is it?" he asked.

"You're needed down in the data core." Amy said politely. "They claim they've made an important discovery down there, and they won't say anything about it until you come and see it first."

Marbles nodded. "All right." he said. "I'll be right there."

Amy nodded, and walked away. Marbles stopped long enough to savor the view a moment longer, and then started back down the hill, heading towards the location of the hidden underground data core, curious what surprises today had in store for him.

* * *

"It's a good thing the major isn't here for this." Davidson remarked as he dug. "We can work faster without her being around to complain about how boring this is."

"Personally, I think it's all kind of fascinating." McKinsey remarked as he helped to dig. "This site is said to be the origin of modern Cyberspace as we know it today, that the people who created it, the Founders of Cyberspace, were the most advanced cyborgs in history. Not only that, but the site's been lost for who knows how long and is really only now getting uncovered. It'd be like Atlantis back home."

"Except nobody's found Atlantis back in the Real World." Davidson remarked, his shovel accidently clanging against the side of the object they were trying to unbury.

"Be careful with that!" A tall man said, standing next to the device and was busy working with the circuitry within. Alex stood beside him, brushing dust off of the curious symbols that lined the device, which appeared to be some kind of column. "This thing is centuries old! It's very delicate! Bumping it like that could completely ruin it if you aren't careful!"

"Go easy on them, Dad!" Alex said. "They're military after all. They're used to blowing stuff up, not putting stuff back together."

"It's Major Hardson who likes to blow things up." Davidson said in his defense. "We just go along for the ride."

"Whatever the case, you need to be more careful!" Alex's dad scolded, and then went back to the circuitry he was working with. It was several years beyond him, but he still was enjoying trying to figure it out. "This is great, though." he said after a moment, shaking his head in amazement. "I'm so glad Dr. Marbles and Motherboard let me come to Cyantis to help study things."

"Yeah, I figured you'd love to get a chance to do this." Alex agreed, glad his dad was having such a great time. "So I put in a good word to both of them, and well, we all know the rest."

"Yes we do." Alex's father agreed. "I've been dying to have a chance to get into Cyberspace again, this time to just explore." he paused for a moment. "But while Cyantis is pretty cool, I kinda wish I could go and see other cybersites."

"Hmm, but the Grand Cyber Council is really hesitant about that." McKinsey remarked. "The CSEDS can hardly get permission for us, CS-1, to get to go where we go. These cyborgs here in Cyberspace are really hesitant about we from the Real World know about them."

"There's a reason for that, you know." Alex said. "They're worried that if too much information about Cyberspace is revealed to the Real World too soon, it could spark catastrophic events."

"Right, I know, I've read the report about Matt and Inez's little adventure to that parallel universe." McKinsey said. "Still, it gets frustrating."

"Well, at least CS-1 gets to go to more places than I do." Alex's father remarked. He paused for a moment. "How hard is it to become a team member on CS-1 anyway?" he asked suddenly.

Both Davidson and McKinsey seemed to have been caught off guard by the question.

"You know, I don't know." Davidson admitted. "We've never crossed that bridge yet."

"I suppose it wouldn't be unlike getting admittance to other teams in our program." McKinsey reasoned. "Just stuff like security checks, background checks, health checks..."

"So do you think I could get on the team?" Alex's father asked hopefully.

Again, Davdison and McKinsey seemed unsure.

"I dunno." Davidson said. "I suppose having a scientist like you around would be to our advantage, wouldn't it?"

"I don't know if the major would go for it, though." McKinsey pointed out. "She doesn't care for science, and therefore doesn't like scientists too much."

"Unless it involves life-threatening danger and blowing stuff up." Davidson pointed out.

"I can do all of that!" Alex's father said quickly. "I mean, true, I've never done it before, but I could learn!"

"Dad!" Alex bemoaned, slightly embarrassed. "Leave the nice military men to their digging! Besides, didn't you want to get this done before the day ended?"

"Oh, right." Alex's dad said, and he went back to the task at hand. "Sorry."

"Don't be." Davidson said. "It wouldn't hurt to ask around, anyway. It's just with Hardson, I don't see it happening."

Looking a little put out, Alex's dad resumed his work.

* * *

Cyantis, in addition to it's many and impressive structures, once housed what had to be beautiful parks, at least at one point. Since the time the Founders of Cyberspace left the cybersite, those parks eventually became overrun with weeds and became quite the opposite of beautiful. But when the Cyantis Expedition began, one of the many things that was done was refocus care and attention to those parks, and get them looking back to what they were like back in the day.

So now the parks were bright and green and pretty, and it was one of these such parks that Dr. Marbles found himself in now. He savored the sight for a moment, but he had other things he needed to do at the moment, and moved to a certain location in the park. There, located in the ground, was a cleverly hidden door, and was normally almost completely invisible from sight when closed.

But it wasn't closed. It was currently wide open so people could go in and out of it as needed, and as such, the open door left a large hole in the ground, leading into the hidden sub-level below it. Since the expedition had arrived here, they had found many of these sub-levels scattered all over the site, but it was only this one sub-level that probably held the best discovery about Cyantis to date.

Arriving at the open doorway, Marbles lowered himself into the sub-level and clambered on down the ladder and into the sub-level and into the hallway it was apart of. Since it's first discovery, it had been cleaned up significantly, the dust all cleared away, lit, and they had even managed to get some of the technology working.

But this was all relatively old news, and Marbles walked right past it to the end room at the end of the hallway. This room was the only room that had been perfectly preserved that had been found, and it contained the Cyantian data core, containing nearly all of the knowledge of the Founders of Cyberspace, which was a great deal, and thus a lot of information to sift through.

It was very busy in the room, filled with lit consoles and scientist gathered around all of them. No one seemed to notice Marbles entering the room, but Marbles didn't mind. It happened frequently enough, and he knew who to look for anyway. Working his way through the tangle of equipment and scientists hard at work, he went to a tall and lanky cyborg scientist dressed in a plain white button-up shirt and dark pants and cleared his throat.

"Dr. Quark, you called for me?" Marbles said politely.

Quark looked up from the screen he was watching. "Dr. Marbles!" he greeted happily. "Yes, I did call for you. I take it Amy told you we found something very important?"

"Yes she did." Marbles said. "And I'm admittedly curious about what it is."

"Well, first, you should sit down." Quark said, and patted the chair that stood next to the console. Marbles sat in it. Quark grabbed a clipboard and handed it to Marbles. "Now, you read this." he said. "This is the report the data core gave us regarding how much damage Cyantis on a whole has received. Note the percentages it indicates."

Marbles did, and read through the report. Then he blinked and read through them again. "There must be some mistake." he said. "These numbers _can't _be right."

"But they are." Quark said.

"But then, if that's true, and these numbers are right..."

"...then the damage estimates we had for Cyantis are well _over _than where they really are."

"Which means that the damage isn't anywhere near as bad as it looks."

"Which further means that given some time and a lot of hard work, we could eventually restore Cyantis to it's former glory."

Marbles looked at Quark with wide eyes. "This is great news!" he said. "Imagine, restoring Cyantis back to the way it looked originally..." he trailed off, looking excited, and stood up. "I'm going to go spread the news. Good work, Quark, very good work! Keep it up!"

He quickly ran out of the room. Chuckling to himself and shaking his head, Quark turned back to the screen he was working with for a moment. It was a deep space scanner of sorts, not unlike the kind Control Central had, but much more powerful. He was examining it's features when a little blip appeared on the screen, indicating an object was heading towards Cyantis itself. Quark glanced at it for a moment, then shooed it aside and moved on to other things. It wasn't uncommon for craft to come and go from Cyantis.

But if he had looked a little closer, he would've seen that this object had a peculiar energy signature to it, and that it was moving across Cyberspace much faster than it should....


	4. Hacker's Will

When brainstorming for ideas for this fanfic, I thought it would be funny if it was revealed at some point that Hacker had a will. Another chapter just explaining what's happened in the month that has passed, but with a bit of bait at the end to maintain interest. About another chapter of this, and then we'll be getting down into the real meat of the story.

4.

Hacker's Will

"Okay, are we ready to get things started?" Motherboard asked politely.

Digit looked up from the trinket he was fiddling with and Jackie glanced up from the papers she was skimming through. Both of them looked at the three cyborgs that were sitting in chairs in front of them. They were ones they knew well. They were Buzz, Delete, and Wicked. Delete seemed excited to be here, Buzz looked indifferent, and Wicked was impatient.

"Well, let's get on with it already." Wicked grumbled. "I have better things than to sit around Hacker's old hideout, you know."

Jackie looked around the interior of the empty hanger bay Hacker had built at the Northern Frontier, and mentally had to agree. There were better things she could be doing herself. But Motherboard had asked her to come, and here seemed to be the best place to do this at, considering Wicked was going to be here. Besides, no one had been here since the Grim Wreaker was destroyed a month or so ago, taking Hacker with it, so it only seemed natural.

"We will begin, then." Motherboard said from the portable screen that had been set up for her use. "I wish to resolve the matter of Hacker's will now rather than later, anyway."

"I can't believe Hacker had a will." Buzz said suddenly. "He never mentioned even putting one together."

"I know, it caught me by surprise, too." Digit had to agree as he took one of Jackie's papers and looked through it. "But when we were tracking down all of Hacker's possessions in the aftermath of his death, we found this will stashed away in a safe place."

"Yes, yes, I'm sure that the back story to all of this is very interesting, but let's get this over with." Wicked said.

"Okay." Jackie said, and picked up the first paper. "We'll skim through all the usual trademark legal stuff that Hacker has included in this will, as most of it no longer applies. The first benefactor Hacker lists is Buzz and Delete."

The two robots perked up at this part.

"Hacker apparently wished to leave this entire hanger bay to both of you." Jackie said, glancing at the two robots. "He says in the will that it's mostly because you two are going to need a place to call home as you're both two stupid to get your own lives."

She winced at that last part and wished she hadn't read it aloud immediately after she had said it. Buzz and Delete winced as well, but their eyes sparkled with interest, and Jackie could already see they were making plans for what they would do with the hanger bay. Jackie was pleased. The two robots had been through a lot lately, and in the process had earned the friendship of the Cybersquad. They deserved an award of some sort.

"What else?" Wicked asked, clearly anxious to get to the parts where it concerned her.

Digit picked up his paper now. "Well, this one's about Hacker's trophy collection." he said, reading the paper. "Apparently, it's going to Buzz, to do with as he wishes. Hacker noted that Buzz had taken a mild interest in it, and figured it had to go to somebody so it might as well be Buzz."

Buzz shrugged. "I'll probably sell 'em all." he muttered. "I only pretended to be interested."

"Yes, yes, I'm sure you did." Wicked interrupted. "Moving on to _me _now."

"Actually, Wicked, Delete's the next one." Jackie said as she studied the will. "Hacker apparently decided to leave him his spare cape, because he was of the opinion Delete needed a better sense of style."

Delete laughed at this. "The boss always did have a great sense of humor." he said, thinking it was a joke.

Buzz didn't look so sure. "Actually DeeDee, he might be right." he said. "Remember that formal dinner we all went to a couple of months back?"

Delete froze for a moment, and blushed in embarrassment at the memory.

"I do not believe wearing one of Hacker's capes will resolve the issue." Motherboard said as a matter of opinion. "Besides, it is Delete's choice to decide his fashion and not ours."

"Besides, that cape would be too long for Delete." Digit remarked.

"Can we move on, now?" Wicked interrupted again. "I'm next, right?"

"Actually, no." Digit said, looking surprised as he read more of the will. "Believe it or not, it's actually _us _who are next in the will."

"Really?" Jackie asked. "Hacker left something for us? What did he leave us?"

"Mostly a bunch of insults, vows, and lots of other un-nice things." Digit said, frowning as he read. "He also apparently left something for us in a safe box that's being kept at the Intersite CyberBank. Says it's our 'just reward.' Box's number is forty-four."

Motherboard winced. "I will have Dr. Marbles examine it and destroy it's contents at a later date." she said. "Let's proceed."

"Yes, yes, please do!" Wicked said, confident this was the part that concerned her.

It wasn't. Jackie had to double check to make sure she was reading this right, in fact. "It says here that Hacker wanted to leave the Grim Wreaker to someone named Bob." she said, furrowing her brow in puzzlement.

This drew a few blank looks.

"Who's Bob?" Digit asked.

"I've never heard of him." Wicked remarked, also furrowing her brow.

Buzz and Delete just shrugged.

"In this case it does not matter." Motherboard said. "The Grim Wreaker has been destroyed, and there is nothing left to leave Bob, whomever he is."

"Good point, Mother B." Jackie said.

"Okay, moving on." Digit said. "Wicked, this part deals entirely with you."

"Yes!" Wicked cheered.

"For starters, Hacker wishes to leave you his entire library." Digit went on.

Wicked nodded her head in content, but Delete frowned.

"But the boss kept his library on the Grim Wreaker." he objected. "It was still there when the Wreaker was destroyed."

"In other words, she doesn't get the library after all." Buzz said.

"Hacker also left you his entire stash of Solarian Cheese." Digit went on.

"Most of which was on the Wreaker, and the rest was kept here, where it's gone bad." Buzz said.

"He also left you all of his evil plans..." Digit continued.

"Destroyed with the Wreaker." Buzz said.

"...everything of yours you had given to him..."

"Destroyed with the Wreaker."

"...the turkey dinner he was keeping frozen to save for a very special occasion between you two..."

"Destroyed with the Wreaker."

"...and whatever birthday present stashed away in the closet that he hadn't given you yet."

"Also destroyed with the Wreaker."

Wicked narrowed her eyes in frustration. Buzz and Delete were trying to stifle their laughter and weren't succeeding too well.

"So in other words I get nothing?" Wicked said. "Why am I even here, then?"

"Comic relief?" Digit asked innocently, sending Buzz and Delete into another fit of laughter at Wicked's expense.

"Actually, there's one last item Hacker has on his will." Jackie said, reading the end of the will. "It's for all of his benefactors."

"Minus us, the good guys, of course." Digit noted, reading over Jackie's shoulder.

"'To be spilt evenly among them,'" Jackie read, "'I, The Hacker, leave _three million snelfus_ to each of them?'"

"Three million snelfus?" everyone else repeated, all standing.

"You mean to tell me that Hacker had _three million snelfus _stashed away somewhere for all this time, and he never gave me a cent of it?" Wicked asked, indignant. "Why that little cheapskate!"

"Hacker never said he had that kind of money lyin' around!" Buzz said. "In fact, he always acted like he was very short on funds!"

"Well, according to this, Hacker had been saving an extra snelfu from his funds into this private account until it started adding up." Jackie said, reading on. "It was to be saved for emergencies and nothing else. He decided that his death counted as an emergency, then."

Wicked had started pacing, thinking this through. "So, we all get an even share of this three million snelfus?" she asked. "Spilt among the three of us, how much do we each get?"

"Spilt among the four of you, you mean." Digit said. "Don't forget Bob."

"Whoever he is." Jackie said, as she ran a few numbers through her SKWAK pad.

Motherboard, however, was a step faster. "Seven hundred fifty thousand snelfus apiece." she replied.

Wicked's eyes sparkled greedily as she thought about what she could do with that much money.

"There is, however, one problem." Jackie said. "Hacker left a note at the very end, a hastily scrawled one, leading me to believe he added this very recently before he bit it that due to circumstances beyond his control, Wicked would not be getting her share of the snelfus."

"What!?" Wicked cried in anguish.

"He wrote it with a very angry tone." Jackie added.

"Guess he was mad at you for something." Digit said with a grin.

"I have just checked the account containing the money." Motherboard announced as well. "Wicked's share is, in fact, missing. Hacker apparently disposed of the money before he died. For what reasons, I cannot say, but Jackie is right. It was done fairly recently. I would presume you did something to displease Hacker so much, Wicked."

"But...but..." Wicked stuttered.

"I guess you really don't get anything, Wicked, because that's the end." Jackie said, collecting her papers back together.

"But...but...oh, hang it all!" Wicked cried, and angrily stormed out of the hanger bay, leaving Buzz and Delete laughing their heads off.

* * *

Once they had everything wrapped up and settled, Jackie, Digit, and Motherboard prepared to leave.

"Well, glad we got _that _over with." Jackie said, taking the will and throwing it aside carelessly. "May we never have to worry about anything Hacker related ever again."

Digit grinned. "I think that's a safe bet Jax, what with Cyberspace being at peace again." he said. "So Motherboard, you working on making a portal for us?"

Motherboard, however, had a distracted and puzzled look on her face at the moment and did not reply.

"Mother B?" Jackie asked. "Is there something wrong?"

"I do not know." Motherboard admitted. "But there is certainly something out of place. I have just detected on my long range sensors an unknown object entering the boundaries of known Cyberspace. It is moving very quickly and is emitting an energy signature I cannot say I have seen the likes of before."

Jackie and Digit glanced at one another. "What is it?" Jackie asked.

"Again, I cannot say." Motherboard admitted. "But whatever the object is, it has laid in a direct course for Cyantis."


	5. Historian

Last introductory chapter, this one featuring just Peter. In this chapter I reveal a lot of previously unrevealed backstory to the Founders of Cyberspace and Cyantis. Yes, it plays a bearing on the story. :)

5.

Historian

Peter sifted through his stack of books, pulling out the one he wanted and flipping through it's pages. Finding the information he wanted, he took note of it with his SKWAK pad, and then moved on, setting that book aside on the cluttered table and pulling out another. He paused long enough to glance at his watch.

It was twelve o'clock. That meant he had been here at the Cybrary for the better part of the morning. At least, that was according to Cyberspace time. So in that regard, he had been in Cyberspace for the better part of the morning. In the Real World, he had only been gone for about...fifteen minutes.

So there was still time to have a perfectly great morning in the Real World. It'd be like having two mornings in one. Heck, he could go home now and still have a pretty good chance to get that last pancake he remembered was still sitting on the kitchen table. Which in turn reminded him how hungry he was and thus reminded him that it was probably time to go get lunch.

As the Cybrary had no cafeteria (that he knew of, the place was massive and he was pretty confident he _still _hadn't seen everything in here), Peter began working at packing up, selecting the books he wanted to check out for further reading. He thought about taking the others and putting them back, but he had most of them in his arms already as he wanted to check them out, and he was having a hard enough time trying to keep from dropping those. So he tried to leave the others there with no one noticing.

It didn't work, though, because Peter then turned around and ran smack into Ms. Fileshare. Surprised, he dropped the books with a crash to the floor and toppled over.

"Sorry Ms. Fileshare!" he quickly apologized, hurrying to pick up the fallen books. "I'll clean it up."

"Don't worry too much about it." Ms. Fileshare said, stooping over to help pick up the books with her four arms. "I just ask that once we're done here that you put away those books over there, as well."

She pointed at the books Peter had left on the table. Peter glanced back at them nervously.

"Heh, you saw that, huh?" he asked.

"Yes." Ms. Fileshare said simply. It was hard to tell if she was angry or not. Peter sensed she wasn't, but he knew enough about her to not push his luck.

"Sorry, I'll put them away." Peter said as they carried the books back to the table. "I was just in a hurry to get to lunch and already had my arms full."

"Then you could've just made two trips." Ms. Fileshare pointed out, setting down her stack. She glanced thoughtfully at Peter for a moment. "We've met before, haven't we?" she asked.

Peter nodded. "Yeah, I'm Peter." he said.

Ms. Fileshare gave him a blank look.

"You know, from the Cybersquad?" Peter prompted. "Well, the backup one, at least. We met a little more than a month ago, remember?"

"Oh, yes, I remember now." Ms. Fileshare said. "_That _Peter." she grinned. "I suppose you're here trying to keep busy, aren't you?"

"Partly, yes." Peter admitted, as he worked to sort out the books again. "Things have gotten pretty quiet now that Hacker's been beaten."

"It's peace hard won." Ms. Fileshare said. "Everyone's trying to savor it while they can."

"It's peace that came with a price." Peter corrected a little sterner than intended. "We shouldn't forget that."

Ms. Fileshare was silent a moment. "Of course." she said. "I'm sorry if I sounded insensitive. Of course Inez's death hasn't gone unnoticed. We all miss her."

Peter shook his head. "Tell that to Matt." he said. "He took it the hardest out of all of us."

"I haven't seen Matt since Hacker was defeated." Ms. Fileshare said.

"That's because he's spent most of that time sitting around moping." Peter said, and sighed. "Inez's death was a shock to all of us. But we all worked to move on after awhile. Matt's the only one who hasn't. And sometimes I wonder where that's going to get him."

Ms. Fileshare sighed herself. "Nowhere good." she said.

"Probably."

They were silent for a moment.

"So, what are you studying?" Ms. Fileshare said, taking a book and looking at the title. "_Cyberspace History_. You're studying history?"

Peter made a noncommittal shrug.

"You don't strike me as a historian." Ms. Fileshare said.

"Well, I have only a mild interest in the subject." Peter admitted. "But it's an interest that has been sparked as of late because of the sudden interest in Cyantis."

"Ah, the lost cybersite of the Founders of Cyberspace." Ms. Fileshare said knowingly. "Yes, interest there really has been higher than normal."

"Well, I just got curious." Peter said. "See, I've heard the names Cyantis and the Founders of Cyberspace so frequently these days, but I realized that didn't really know much about the background of either. So I started doing some research."

"And what have you learned?" Ms. Fileshare asked.

"A fair bit." Peter replied. "Apparently, hundreds of years ago, at least according to Cyberspace time, Cyberspace was a very different place from what it is now. There was chaos and turmoil, constant war, and the technology levels were significantly less. Most citizens of Cyberspace were unable to leave their cybersites to find new ones. It was actually a pretty bad place."

"Then, one day, word started getting around that there was a group of cyborgs that lived on a previously barren cybersite. Unlike other cyborgs of the time, they learned to set aside their differences and worked together to make their lives better. They succeeded, turning that barren cybersite into the modernized and advanced cybersite of Cyantis. They invented many of the things Cyberspace uses today. Portals, Encryptor chips, cybercraft, laser cannons...they single-handedly changed the course of Cyberspace history. And they did it all by working together."

"Once they had done that, they started spreading out into Cyberspace and spreading what they had learned. Technology levels started to spike all over, cyborgs started to give up fighting and instead began exploring the world they lived in. They started working together. Cyberspace became peaceful. And it's all thanks to these previously unknown cyborgs from Cyantis. What they did earned them the title of "Founders of Cyberspace", because they did indeed found Cyberspace as we know it today."

"They did many other things, building their own cybersites, for instance. They built the Cybrary to house all the information that had been collected. They created the hardware that would be later used to make Motherboard. They helped rally the governments of all the cybersites together to form the Grand Cyber Council, the united democracy government Cyberspace on a whole operates on today. They changed whole cybersites, even. For instance, R Fair City was originally a site that had been very nearly torn to pieces from war. But after the Founders of Cyberspace came along, it was transformed into the theme park and tourist spot we know it by today."

"Eventually, though, the Founders of Cyberspace became so advanced that they felt they had done everything they could in this cybergalaxy. So they built a massive ship big enough for all of them, and powerful enough it could make the journey to the next cybergalaxy. Locking down Cyantis to keep it safe, they then left to go explore other worlds, promising someday to come back. But as we all know, they never did."

Peter concluded by staring at the book on the top of his stack for a very long moment.

"That all sounds about right." Ms. Fileshare said. "Just about everyone in Cyberspace learns all of that in elementary school." she sighed. "Too bad we never found out what became of the Founders of Cyberspace. It would be great to meet them in person."

"Well, actually, I did find something that could clue us in." Peter said, taking the book from the top of his stack and opening it. "A cyborg archeologist, not a very prestigious one, once found a Cyantian artifact that included what he described as a 'lost chapter' to Cyberspace history. Apparently not _everything _was fine and dandy with the Founders of Cyberspace. Some of them, a very select few, weren't exactly thrilled with what they were doing. They saw they were more advanced than the rest of Cyberspace, and they wanted to use that ability to their advantage."

"See, one of the many fears of the Founders was that all of their hard work wouldn't last, and that it would all eventually the cyborgs of Cyberspace would go back to the old ways and undo everything. We've seen some of that happen with Hacker, so they knew how real it was. Well, these select few knew that they could use what they knew to put themselves in charge of Cyberspace, and force the rest of the cyborgs to behave."

"A monarchy." Ms. Fileshare remarked.

Peter nodded. "Naturally, though, the idea was very controversial." he continued. "Most wanted to leave the choice up to the cyborgs, let them keep their own freewill. But the numbers of these select few started to grow, and they were starting to cause problems as they continued to press for this change. The issue was left unresolved when the Founders of Cyberspace left for another cybergalaxy."

Ms. Fileshare was frowning. "I've never heard of this before." she said.

"That's not surprising." Peter said, turning the page. "See, the artifact that had all of this information was an electronic storage device. The archeologist who found it was able to access it and take note of all this information, but when he took it to others so they could analyze the information, the device had died, losing all the information stored on it. All we had to confirm the truthfulness of this information was the archeologist's word. And as he wasn't a very important or famous archeologist..."

"...most just shrugged off the story as false." Ms. Fileshare concluded.

Peter nodded. "Nobody liked the idea that the Founders were not as kind-hearted as they seemed in the history books. As such, the idea didn't get spread around much." he closed to book. "It's just a theory, though. The only way we could have any proof if it's true is if the Founders ever came back. Then we could just ask them."

"But it's unlikely we'll ever get that chance, will we?" Ms. Fileshare said.

Peter nodded. They fell silent for a moment.

"Well, I need to be getting to lunch." Peter said, checking his watch and collecting his books again. "See you later."


	6. Matt's Quest

Okay, now that we've done and introduced everything, we're getting into the story itself by going back to cover Matt's quest for Inez's replacement. Also build the action, for the mysterious object arrives at Cyantis, as well as one other thing... ;)

6.

Matt's Quest

"So lemme get this straight." Hardson said as she and Matt walked down the partly completed hallway of the CSC. "You want to find a replacement for Inez to be on the Cybersquad?"

"That's right." Matt said, stepping around a worker as he placed a panel into place.

"And you're coming to me for help?" Hardson asked, acting surprised. "What, do you want me to find someone from the CSEDS to go onto the team?"

"Wha-no!" Matt exclaimed. "Of course I don't! That would be a very, very, bad idea!"

"Well, dang, because I thought it was a really good idea." Hardson said. "But then, if you aren't here for that, then what _do _you want from me?"

"Advice, I guess." Matt said. "I mean, this is the first time the Cybersquad has ever gotten into this situation. I'm not too sure who I should be looking for to replace Inez."

"I would think you'd pick someone from the backup squad, you know, like Peter, Alex, and Lara." Hardson said. "I mean, isn't that what they're there for?"

"No, they're there to back _all _of us up should we need the added help." Matt said. "We start taking members from that team, and then we don't have a backup team anymore."

"I guess that's one way to look at it." Hardson admitted, then changed the subject. "Well, let's look at this logically. What did Inez have that made her stand out in the team?"

"Well, let's see here, she was smart." Matt said, listing that off on his fingers. "She was young. Funny. A great friend. She knew more about how Cyberspace worked that most of us." he paused for a moment. "I can't think of much else beyond that, unless you think there's something relevant to all of this that I missed."

"No, I can't think of anything." Hardson said. "But there you go, that gives you a place to start. You're looking for someone who's has Inez's brains, who's a friend, and knows Cyberspace like the back of their hands." she paused for a moment. "You _sure _you don't want someone from the CSEDS on the team? Because I can think of a whole boatload of people who could apply."

"Ah, but they all fall short at the good friend requirement." Matt said, walking off. "Thanks for the help, major!"

"Um, sure." Hardson said blankly, watching him go. "Hey wait, was that an insult?"

* * *

"A position on the Cybersquad?" Creech asked in surprise.

"Sure, I figure you'd be a big help to the team." Matt said. "You have many qualities that Inez did. I would think you'd be the first choice."

Creech was silent for a moment, her eyes looking over at something off the screen. Matt waited patiently, glad the CSC's construction hadn't interfered with the long-range transmitter so he could make this call.

"Oh, Matt, it's really flattering for you to ask." Creech said. "But...I think I'll have to turn it down."

"What? Why?" Matt asked, caught a little off guard.

"Well, isn't obvious?" Creech asked. "I can't spare the time to be a fulltime member of the Cybersquad, Matt. I'm the Big Kahuna of all of Tikiville. My first and foremost responsibility is to my people. I'd be shirking my duties if I did anything else."

"Oh." Matt said glumly, not having thought of that.

"Look, Matt, I'm really glad you asked, anyway." Creech said. "This tells me you're ready to move on. To be frank, we've all been a bit worried about you ever since Inez died. We all miss her, but no where near as much as you have. But you going and looking for a replacement means you're moving on, which is really good. Maybe your first choice didn't work, but keep at it."

"Yeah." Matt said. "Thanks."

"You're welcome." Creech said. "And good luck!"

* * *

"Well, I have to admit, I'm a bit flattered." Slider said, glancing occasionally at the screen while at the same time working on a device. "I mean, it's not everyday you get asked to join the Cybersquad, a group of people who will be hailed as heroes from here on out."

"Now _I'm _the one who's flattered." Matt said, forcing a grin. "So will you do it?"

"Well, I don't know." Slider admitted. "This is a bit sudden."

"Well, then, you don't have to give me your answer right away." Matt said. "Take your time."

"No." Slider said, setting down what he was working on for a moment. "No, I've got my answer now."

"And?" Matt inquired.

Slider bit his lip. "Matt, thanks for offering, but..." he trailed off for a moment. "...I don't think I'm the cyborg for the job. I mean, I'm willing to help out occasionally, but full-time..."

"Oh." Matt said, again disheartened.

"Don't get me wrong, Matt, under any other circumstances, I would've said yes." Slider said. "But...life's still been a bit hectic since me and Dad have gotten back together, and now, with Hacker gone, is as good a time as any to sort things out."

"Oh." Matt said again. "Okay."

"Thanks anyway, Matt."

"Sure thing Slider."

* * *

"The Cybersquad?" Delete asked. "Oh gee, I dunno..."

"Please Delete?" Matt asked. "I mean, you and Buzz want to make it up to the cyberworld for what you've done, right? And well, while I can't vouch for Buzz, I think this would be the best way for you to do it!"

"I don't know..." Delete said again.

"C'mon Delete!" Matt said. "You've always been partial to our side, anyway! Now is your chance to _be _on our side!"

Delete thought long and hard. "No, no, I don't think I'm cut out for the Cybersquad." he said. "I'm not smart enough, not brave enough, had a bad upbringing..."

"Oh, Delete, don't let that stop you!" Matt pressed.

"No, I'd stand out like a sore thumb with you guys!" Delete pressed. "I mean, you guys are smart, and funny, and nice...and...I'm not. Not enough, anyway."

Matt sighed. "All right." he said. "It's your choice."

"Oh, don't be upset." Delete said quickly. "I'm really flattered that you even considered to ask me."

"Yeah, I've been getting that a lot." Matt said.

"But, in the long run, I'd think it'd be much better if you just picked someone else." Delete said. "Besides, me and Buzz are thinking about taking Hacker's old hideout and turning it into a donut/pet shop, change how things are done here at the Northern Frontier. That's going to take up a lot of our time."

"No, I understand, Delete." Matt assured him.

"Besides, I could never picture myself taking Inez's place." Delete said. His eyes went vacant for a moment. "Poor Inez." he blinked and got back on track. "Anyway, it seems to me you should find someone who could really be like Inez."

"Yeah." Matt said. "Maybe."

* * *

"The Cybersquad?" Shari squealed. "Really?"

"Yeah!" Matt said. "Will you do it?"

"Oh, I really want to!" she said happily. But then she trailed off for a moment to think. "But..."

"Oh no." Matt said dejectedly.

"Being on the Cybersquad would be time consuming, and I need to finish my studies here at Frogsnorts before I try anything like that." Shari said. "I'm sorry Matt, but I think I'll have to pass."

"Okay." Matt said, sliding lower in his chair.

"Oh, don't be like that Matt." Shari said. "I really want to, and of course I'm flattered that you asked me of all people..."

"You and everyone else in Cyberspace!" Matt exclaimed suddenly. He paused for a moment, breathing deeply. "Sorry." he apologized. "It's just you're not the first person I've called."

"I got that impression." Shari said. She was silent for a moment. "Matt, maybe you don't want to hear this but...maybe this means you should give up."

"Give up?" Matt repeated. "What on earth for?"

"Well, to be honest, do we really need a Cybersquad anymore?" Shari asked. "Hacker's gone! Cyberspace is at peace! There's nothing left for a Cybersquad of any shape and size to do!"

"Nothing's forever, Shari." Matt pointed out.

"Oh, I know, but still." Shari said. "Do you really think you could find an adequate replacement for Inez anyway?"

Matt didn't reply right away. "No." he finally admitted. "Not really."

"Then why try?" Shari asked. "You're looking for another Inez, one identical to the first, and you're just never going to find that!"

"How do you know?" Matt asked.

"I know how close you two were, Matt." Shari said. "You were much more than friends. That's why you've taken her death so hard. Because of that, I think it's still too soon for you to be finding a replacement for Inez. You just aren't ready to deal with that."

Matt was silent for another moment. "Maybe you're right." he said, dejectedly standing up.

"Look, at least take a break for a little while, you look like you could use it." Shari said. "And thanks again for asking. It means so much to me, even though I can't accept the offer."

"Sure thing, Shari." Matt said, reaching for the control to end the transmission. "Bye."

He shut off the screen, glanced up at it for a long moment, then turned and walked out of the room with a sigh.

* * *

"Motherboard, how close is the object now?" Dr. Marbles asked urgently into his SKWAK pad, as he hurried people into the shelter of the underground sub-level.

"It is very nearly there." Motherboard said. "It will be over Cyantis within the next few minutes, you need to get everyone to shelter as soon as possible until we know for sure just what this object is and why it is here."

"Right." Marbles said, motioning for the last party of cyborgs to hurry. "C'mon, we need to get down here, hurry!" they arrived and quickly clambered down into the sub-level, Marbles hot on their heels. "There!" he said, closing the hatch behind him. "That's everyone!"

He hurried into the data core where they were watching the object's approach via a remote scanning sensor. He held up his SKWAK pad as he entered. "Motherboard says the object will be right over us at any minute!" he exclaimed.

"Less than that, it's already here!" Dr. Quark exclaimed from where he sat at a console. "It's entering cybersite orbit, and decelerating! Scanning it now!"

Marbles hurried on over to watch over Quark's shoulder as he conducted the scan. Once done, Quark blinked.

"Marbles, that object is a ship!" he said. "A big one too, about half the size of the site itself."

"And that's not all." Marbles said, scanning through the data, and pointing at a certain section. "Look there."

Quark did. His eyes widened.

"It's Cyantian?" he asked. "The ship is of Cyantian design?"

"Not just any Cyantian design." Marbles said, his own eyes going wide. "That ship is a transport ship, one designed to transport the entire population of a cybersite off of it."

"Only one was said to exist, though." Quark said.

Marbles nodded. "And the Founders of Cyberspace took it."

They were silent for a moment. Quark glanced back at the readings long enough to confirm there was life on the ship before looking back at Marbles.

"This can only mean one thing, you know." he said. "The Founders of Cyberspace have returned."

* * *

Matt walked dejectedly down the hallway deep within Control Central, his head hung. With a sigh, he rounded the corner and stepped up to an elevator. Slapping his hand on the up control, he waited for the elevator car to arrive and for the doors to open. Once they had, he stepped inside, and turned back around to face the doors as they closed. He pressed the button that would take him up to the command deck.

As the elevator started to move upward, Matt rocked on his feet as he waited for the elevator to arrive. But then, without warning, the elevator suddenly stopped with a jerk, and the lights went out. Frowning, Matt looked around the dimly lit elevator for a moment, then moved towards the control panel to try and sort out the problem from there. But before he could, he heard someone clearing their throat behind him, and he whirled around to see who was in here with him.

And there he saw the very last person he expected.

"Hey Matt." Inez greeted with a grin.


	7. Not So Dead After All

This chapter explains how Inez just...appeared...in the elevator, and what's she been up to in the neutramatter dimension.

7.

Not So Dead After All

Matt stared for a long moment at Inez, scarcely believing she was really there. But there she was, standing before, looking no worse for wear, smiling slightly at Matt's surprise and amazement. For a long moment, Matt didn't speak, thinking that Inez was likely to vanish again at any moment. But then when she didn't, he shook his head and stared at her.

"Inez?" he asked softly.

"It's really me, Matt." Inez assured him. "Good to see you again, by the way."

"But..." Matt said, "You can't be here, you're dead!"

"No." Inez said. "No, Matt, I'm not dead."

Matt blanked out for a moment. "Then you're a ghost?" he asked.

"No, I'm not a ghost." Inez said, shaking her head. "I really am here."

Matt gave her a skeptical look.

"Really." Inez said.

Without warning, Matt swung a punch at Inez's head. It didn't connect with anything, and instead passed right through Inez's head, like she was a mere illusion. Inez didn't even blink, and hung her head for a moment before she shrugged.

"Well," she amended. "In a sense."

Matt gave her a very skeptical look.

"Look, the important thing is that I'm not dead." Inez continued. "I'm very much alive, Matt."

Matt was silent for a moment. Then he grinned. "Now I get it." he said. "You're just a hallucination! Caused by...hunger, or....stress, or...maybe I hit my head on something and I'm just dreaming..."

"No, Matt, you're not hallucinating, or dreaming, or anything like that." Inez said. "You really are seeing me, and I really am alive."

"You're dead, Inez!" Matt said. "You didn't get off the Grim Wreaker before it exploded!"

"Technically it wasn't an explosion, but rather just a build up of neutramatter bursting out of it's container and washing over the Wreaker, tearing it apart in the process." Inez corrected.

"Whatever!" Matt said. "Doesn't change the fact that your dead, because you had no way to get off the Grim Wreaker!" He turned his back on her.

"Oh, but I did!" Inez said.

Matt froze.

"There was one way off that ship that you're not thinking of, Matt." Inez went on. "And I took it."

Slowly, Matt turned to look back at her. Inez grinned encouragingly before continuing.

"Remember Hacker's portal generator that led into the neutramatter dimension?" she asked.

Matt nodded, then blinked. "You're in the neutramatter dimension?" he asked.

Inez nodded anxiously, glad she was making some headway finally.

Matt frowned. "Wait!" he said, rubbing at his forehead. "If that's true, then how are you talking to me?"

Inez sighed. "It's very complicated, Matt." she said.

"Well, if you can't explain it, then how am I supposed to believe it?" Matt asked.

"True enough." Inez admitted. "How about I start explaining from the beginning, though? Where this mess all started..."

* * *

"Danger. Neutramatter overload imminent. System will self-destruct in one minute."

Inez gripped the parts creator tightly in one hand, then quickly attached the belt-like device to her waist. Quickly, she scanned the damaged control panel before her, searching for the right controls. Finally, she found the controls that opened and closed the portal, and worked to familiarize herself with them.

"Where's a instruction manual when you need one?" Inez muttered as she worked, brushing debris off of the keys.

Hoping she found the right keys, she quickly started pushing them in the most sensible order, hoping this would work. It did. Moments later, a brilliant, white, portal opened behind her in the portal generator, casting a brilliant light over everything, almost chasing away the feel gloom and destruction the ruined bridge had. Inez turned to face the portal, allowing herself to soak in the warm glow for a moment.

"Danger. Neutramatter overload imminent. System will self-destruct in thirty seconds."

Inez whirled around to glance back at the timer counting down on the screen, and saw that time was indeed running out. She could hear it too, something deep within the crippled ship was groaning, vainly straining to hold back the imminent flood of neutramatter. Inez looked around the ruined bridge of the Grim Wreaker, and back out the hole in the front of the room at the retreating fleet of cybercraft. They had moved pretty far from the craft. Inez realized they wouldn't know where she went.

She gulped, knowing that what she was about to do could very mean that she would be permanently stranded, with no hope of ever going home. Biting her lip, she glanced down at the parts creator strapped to her waist, debating with herself for one last time over her choices before she finally decided.

She'd rather be stranded that killed.

Without stopping to give herself another chance to hesitate, Inez stepped through the portal and into the sheer white world that was the neutramatter dimension. Behind her was the glowing portal, blending in with the dimension's whiteness. Surrounding it was the collecting machine Inez herself had helped to build under force. There was no sign of Hacker himself. The neutramatter had vaporized any trace of him as Inez had predicted.

Once safely inside the dimension, Inez turned around to look back at the portal, and did so just in time for it to flare suddenly. A bang rang out a burst of energy gushed out briefly, scattering debris all about. Inez yelped and ducked, covering her head. But as quickly as it started, it stopped, and the portal suddenly winked out of existence.

Silence fell. Inez sat up, and watched with mild interest as the debris knocked into the dimension disintegrated, unable to help but imagine such a thing happening to Hacker. Then, she was all alone. At first, all Inez did was curl up into a ball and mope, working to get her immediate emotions out of her system so she could focus on surviving.

That done, she turned her attention to the parts generator at her belt, to use it to produce what she needed to survive for her long stay in the neutramatter dimension. The device was all keyed up to produce parts to the collector that had been built, which Inez still had access to. This didn't do her any good, though, so she focused her attention on figuring out how Hacker imputed new plans for new parts and the such.

She knew there had to be one, otherwise Hacker would've had a heck of a time getting the designs for each individual part for the collector into the device. She was thinking it would be some kind of port for another device to connect to, and in that case she would have to come up with some kind of adaptor to it using only parts from the collector.

It turned out to be easier than she expected, though. The device had no port, but it did have a user interface, like a keyboard, that appeared on the screen of the device. It took Inez awhile to figure out why, but then she realized one had to type in the designs for each part by hand. The parts builder was very user friendly, as well. All one needed to do was describe what one wanted, and the device would fill in the blanks to the best of it's abilities. And after some trial and error, Inez was finally able to create a SKWAK pad made out of Real World materials.

She attempted to use it to contact home and call for help, but it didn't work. She wasn't surprised. But the SKWAK pad had other uses, none the least of which was it's drawing board attachments. Inez used it to plan out what else she would need. She settled for the basics for now. A cot, a change of clothes, a clock. After a little work, she was able to whip up a simple meal and a glass of water. Once she was done with this, Inez then called it a night, even though there was no perception of day or night here in this dimension.

The days passed. Inez spent her time building off of what she had. Very quickly she had built herself a small home, and a patch of physical land with a garden so she could produce food. She also experimented a little to try and create things to make this world seem more homely, and eventually created a little world that stretched several feet in all directions for Inez to live in. She also attempted to build a new portal generator, but ultimately failed. She didn't know enough about it to succeed.

But she did learn a great deal during her stay in the neutramatter dimension, all thanks to her experimentation. Pretty soon she was confident she was learning more about things than anyone in Cyberspace did. She used this new knowledge to build upon the SKWAK pad, trying to adapt it to communicate with dimensions outside the neutramatter dimension. She added more and more to it until it wasn't so much a SKWAK pad but a regular sized computer, like what one would find in the Real World.

It was then that she was able to get her first real breakthrough, and was able to get a video feed into Cyberspace. It showed a view of cyberspace, and not a very clear one at that. It appeared to be one way only, too, only allowing her to view that one view of Cyberspace, but no one could see her. She couldn't get any sound either.

But it gave her hope. It also proved that the video feed was unique in that it did not need a receiving device on the other side. It just showed any view of anyplace in Cyberspace she pleased, no matter if there was nothing there, given she adjusted things right. It was kind of like remote viewing.

Building off of this, Inez quickly refined the process and was able to get clear views of anything in Cyberspace, and later, sound. She used this to view what Cyberspace was doing without her, seeing them rebuild from Hacker's campaign of chaos, her friends moving on after her alleged "death", she even saw the dedication of the memorial built in her memory.

And then she made next breakthrough. A means of possibly communicating with someone in Cyberspace by a means of a holographic projection created directly in Cyberspace, portraying a wireless view of a person or object, in this case Inez. The process was very power consuming, and her first few attempts failed, only working for a second if not less. But finally, a month after she was stranded in the neutramatter dimension, Inez finally succeeded in producing a transmission to Cyberspace, and quickly set about using it to contact Matt...

* * *

Once Inez finished explaining things, silence fell in the elevator. Matt looked stunned. Inez worried it was too much information for him to handle all at once.

"Matt?" she asked after a moment. "Did you get all of that? Do you have any questions?"

Slowly, Matt shook his head. "I got it all." he said.

"And?"

Matt grinned. "Inez." he said, shaking his head in joy. "You're alive."

"I think I established that already, Matt." Inez remarked sternly

Matt laughed. He reached out as if to touch her, but as she was only a holographic projection, he couldn't. "If you were here, I'd hug you." he said.

"That parts all up to you." Inez said. "Despite my hardest, I can't seem to build a means to get back home. You guys are going to have to do that."

"And how are we going to do that?" Matt asked. "Sounds to me that you know more than we do."

"You guys have the plans to Project: Neutramatter, and in them are the plans for the portal generator." Inez said. "Use that to build a new generator."

"Well, in that case, we have a problem." Matt said. "Motherboard ordered the plans destroyed not long after the Wreaker was destroyed and you...died. It was agreed that neutramatter had far too much potential to being abused, so we worked to cut off any means to access it."

"Shoot!" Inez said. "Well, that definitely complicates things."

"Well, we'll think of something." Matt said, becoming hopeful. "I mean, if you can come back from the dead, then anything can happen!"

"I was never dead to begin with."

"You know what I mean! But the point is that we'll think of something eventually. But it's not like there's a rush, is there? I mean, you've been able to survive this long, and better still, now you have a way to communicate with others, so you won't be so lonely anymore."

"Actually, Matt, there might be the need to rush." Inez said, but before she could continue, her image suddenly wavered for a moment.

"Inez?" Matt asked urgently.

Inez's image refocused again. "Sorry about that, but I can only sustain this projection for so long before I have to shut it all done to let it recharge." she explained apologetically. "I'm almost out of time, so I've got to be quick. Remember how I said I used my device to see what was going on in Cyberspace?"

Matt nodded.

"Well, I saw something else, and it's not good." Inez said. "I've been tracking it's movements for sometime now. It should be arriving at Cyantis as we speak."

"Cyantis?" Matt repeated, puzzled.

"And there are people on it who are not of the good type." Inez continued, her image flickering constantly. "Despite what everyone will believe, they're enemies, Matt. Do not trust them, and get rid of them as soon as you can, or all of Cyberspace will be in serious trouble, more so than it was with Hacker! You go that?"

"Wait, wait, wait!" Matt said, perplexed. "Who are these people?"

"Oh, right!" Inez said, having forgotten. "They're..."

But she got no further. Her image erupted into a brief moment of static, and after a moment of this, vanished altogether. A moment of silence fell, then the lights flickered back on, and the elevator continued on upward, leaving Matt to wonder what Inez was getting at...


	8. Founders of Cyberspace

Addressing the other plot device to this fanfic. The two plots this fanfic got _should _roll together next chapter.

8.

Founders of Cyberspace

When the elevator arrived at it's destination, Matt rushed out of it in a hurry. Heart pounding faster than his footsteps could pound the deck as he ran, Matt let out a whoop of joy and hop-skipped to the door that led into command deck of Control Central. Inside, he found Jackie, Digit, Lara, and in one corner of her screen, Motherboard. But the rest of the screen save for that one corner was filled with something else. Exactly what, though, Matt didn't look to see.

"Hey guys!" Matt exclaimed, hurrying over to his friends. "You're never going to guess what just happened to..."

"Shush!" Jackie said to Matt, watching the screen. "Be quiet, please, Matt."

"But, I just saw..." Matt began to object.

"Matt, please, could you be quiet?"

"But In..."

"Matt, quiet!"

"But..."

"SHUSH!"

This time everyone said it, and effectively got Matt to shut up. He followed their gaze up to the screen, realizing for the first time that it was showing a view of Cyantis, with a group of people gathered around, looking upward. Matt frowned.

"What's going on?" he whispered to Jackie, who was closest.

"A ship appeared over Cyantis just moments ago." Jackie explained. "They say it's Cyantian and that only one ship of that class ever existed."

"So?" Matt asked, not really seeing what was so incredibly special about that.

"So?" Jackie repeated. "Matt, that's the same kind of ship that the Founders of Cyberspace used when they left!"

Matt blinked in surprise. "You mean they came back?"

"That's why we're watching, so we can find out." Digit remarked, who listened to the conversation.

They watched the screen for a few moments longer. Matt finally saw past the crowd of heads and the Cyantis skyline and at the dim shape in the sky, which had at first taken to be a layer of clouds, but he was now realizing was really a very massive cybercraft. He whistled, drawing looks from others.

"That's one big ship." he remarked.

"It has to be in order to hold the entire population of the Founders of Cyberspace." Digit remarked. "Now shush, Matt."

The view continued like that, and then the view panned downward to reveal a cyborg reporter, Erica Ram to be specific, revealing that this was really a live news report.

"The ship, as you can see, is massive." Erica said. "Currently, it is just sitting there, hovering. There has been talk that the people on the craft have sent communiques down to the site, but currently my sources cannot confirm anything." she paused for a moment. "For those of you just arriving, this is Erica Ram reporting from the famous cybersite, Cyantis, the former home of the Founders of Cyberspace. Who could or could not have returned home after having left years and years ago. The ship above us arrived just moments ago, speeding along to this location at speeds no cybercraft has ever been known to maintain. Scans of the ship reveal it to be of Cyantian design, and big enough to hold the entire population of a cybersite. According to history, only one ship like that has ever been known to exist, and that ship was used by the Founders of Cyberspace to journey to another cybergalaxy. It's return here could mean that the Founders have finally returned to their home galaxy, but we do not have any confirmation of that at this time."

At that moment, the doors in the back of the room opened, and Peter entered, thumbing through a book. "Hey guys, come check this out." he said as he walked over, not looking up from his book. "Did you know that..."

Lara turned and shushed him, who was the closest. Peter gave her a long look, and then finally looked up at the screen. He blinked, then narrowed his eyes at the screen.

"I've seen that book before." he said, pulling out one of the many other books he carried and started flipping through it.

"Shh!"

"There!" Peter exclaimed suddenly, finding what he was looking for in the book, and pointing at it. "That ship is just like the ship the Founders of Cyberspace..."

"We know." Digit interrupted.

"There have been several scientists who have confirmed this, Peter." Motherboard spoke from where her face sat in the corner of the screen.

"Oh." Peter said, shutting the book. "So, where did this one come from?"

"No one knows, now be quiet." Jackie said.

"Funny, though, I was just researching the Founders." Peter remarked, moving over towards Matt.

"Shush!"

Erica Ram came back on again, and motioned for the person holding the camera to follow her as she started to push her way through the crowd.

"It's just been confirmed that there has been several transmissions sent between this site and the ship." she said into the camera as she went. "No confirmation of who is on the ship just yet, but they have requested the scientists who are here as a part of the Cyantis Expedition to build some kind of device. We're heading now to the location of where it's being built..."

She finally reached the edge of the crowd and discovered the device as it was being put together. It looked like a flat platform with four to five lamppost-like structures that towered over it, their glowing heads pointing back down at the platform. Dr. Marbles could be clearly seen among those helping to build the device.

"It has also been confirmed that the scans of the ship reveal that the population aboard the ship is far less than would be expected for the Founders of Cyberspace." Erica Ram continued. "Roughly about only half. It is unknown what one should make of this."

"Curious." Motherboard said. "If it is the Founders of Cyberspace, I wonder what happened to their numbers."

Peter looked thoughtful for a moment. "Maybe war." he said, thumbing one of the books he had tucked under his arm.

Matt blinked, and remembered suddenly about what Inez had told him at the end of their brief meeting. Where these people the people she was talking about? The ones they need to avoid?

On the screen, the scientists placed the last item in place, and then hurried backwards. Dr. Marbles was seen speaking, indicating that they were done. Erica looked excited at this.

"They're done!" she said. "They're calling the people on the ship to inform them."

There was a pause as everyone waited to see what would happen next. Dr. Marbles who was seen, oddly enough, communicating through a SKWAK pad, lowered it and glanced upward at the ship, as if he had simply been told to wait for a moment in response. And wait they all did, and even though it couldn't have more than a few seconds, the wait seemed to be very long.

And then, finally, an orb of light fell down from the ship, straight down to hover above the platform that had been built. It wasn't very big, only about basketball size. Then, quite suddenly, the one ball spilt into three smaller ones, and then started to grow. As they did, they changed shape, and started to form a distinctly humanoid shape.

"It's a teleporter." Lara murmured suddenly, in awe.

The figures shimmered for a moment, and then solidified, forming people. At first glance, they looked like people from the Real World, but their clothing definitely indicated a life in Cyberspace, as full length blue jumpsuits with black boots and matching gloves. The one in the middle, the apparent leader, stepped forward. He was a man with short brown hair, and wore a friendly smile. His blue eyes seemed cold and uncaring, though.

"Greetings!" the man said to everyone. "I am Jacob Tehran, current leader of these people!"

There was a long moment of silence. Then Marbles stepped forward.

"Hello!" he greeted. "I'm Dr. Marbles, the person you were speaking with." he grinned nervously for a moment. "If I may ask, what is the name of your people?"

"Us?" Tehran asked. "Why, we're Cyantians. But then again, you knew us better as the Founders of Cyberspace."


	9. Not Of The Good Type

Short chapter, as I was pressed for time to write this chapter this past week. It gets the message across though. I will also be starting college next week, which will put a large hiccup in my schedule, so if I'm ever late posting chapters, you know why. :)

9.

Not of The Good Type

"But then again, you knew us better as the Founders of Cyberspace."

There was a split second of stunned silence. Then everyone all over Cyberspace who was either there, present for the greeting, or watching the broadcast via television, burst into cheers of celebration. A dream had come true. The fabled Founders of Cyberspace had returned to their home!

Tehran and his two companions took in the cheering like special guests in the parade, bowing and waving at the cheering watchers. They did this for a few moments, then motioned for Dr. Marbles to come closer. Obliging, Tehran wrapped a friendly arm around the cyborg scientist and turned, grinning, to the watching audience.

"Yes, I'm pleased to announce that we have returned at long last!" Tehran continued, yelling loudly so everyone could hear him. "And I promise that a new dawn is beginning! Cyberspace will be changing for the better, as of today!"

The cheering increased in volume. Dr. Marbles was grinning broadly, enjoying every moment of this and even going so far as to begin waving at the celebrators himself. He could just envision the good days that he knew were going to be coming.

So imagine his surprise when he felt the barrel of a weapon being pressed into his back.

"Keep smiling." Tehran ordered, whispering into his ear.

Dr. Marbles quickly forced a smile and continued acting like nothing had happened. No one in the crowd of onlookers seemed to notice.

"All right, Doc Marbles." Tehran went on. "Here's the deal. I want you to arrange for the Grand Cyber Council to come here as quickly as possible, for an emergency meeting. I want _everyone _here, you understand me. I don't care if they have some reason for not coming. _I want them here_."

"Why?" Marbles asked. "Why are you doing this?"

"I said times were going to change, Doc." Tehran said. "And I meant it."

"We didn't think it'd be anything like what you're proposing." Marbles said.

"You haven't even heard my plan yet."

"I know it won't be anything good."

"That's entirely a matter of opinion." Tehran said, jabbing his weapon further into Marbles back. "This is for the better, you'll see. All in good time."

"We thought you were allies." Marbles continued. "That you were the Founders of Cyberspace."

"We _are_."

"Then why are you doing this?"

"You haven't been through what we've been through." Tehran said. "Besides, there is one side to us you don't know about us. Now are you going to do what I asked?"

"Give me one good reason why I should." Marbles hissed.

"Okay." Tehran said dismissively, then turned and nodded at his to companions.

They quickly whipped out aggressive looking weapons, one apiece, and pointed them straight into the celebrating crowd. The celebrating only continued, until someone screamed and pointed at the deadly weapons being pointed at them. There were yells of terror, and the crowd quickly turned to flee.

To Marbles's dismay, the two companions fired their weapons into the crowd, and Marbles looked away as the shots hit their targets.

"No!" he exclaimed, but Tehran simply wrapped his arm around Marbles neck, silencing any further objections.

The crowd didn't get far. Doors on the big ship hanging over the cybersite opened suddenly, and heavily armed craft shot out the open spaces and moved to surround the crowd, their weapons sparkling as they threatened to open fire. The crowd quickly stopped dead in their tracks. One or two craft landed and began unloading more cyborgs from off the ship, all of them armed. They worked to round up the crowd as needed.

Davidson and McKinsey, who were in the crowd, saw there was a problem, and hurried towards Marbles's position to help free him, ready to fight if need be. Tehran's cohorts saw them coming, though, and fired at their position. Their shots fell short, merely startling the two members of CS-1 and throwing them off their guard, so that two more armed men from the ship could sneak up behind them and grab them. Davidson and McKinsey were quickly subdued.

"Someone get to the security building, reactivate the shield!" Tehran roared loudly to his men. "Engage the portal scrambler too, if you can! I don't want anyone getting off this site without my okay!" he then grinned a wicked grin, and started walking into the mist of the panicked crowd. He turned to Marbles. "You ready to talk now, Doc?"

Marbles merely gave him a glare.

Tehran shrugged. "Suit yourself." he said. He grabbed the camera from a nearby cameraman from one of the news teams. Making sure it was still sending a signal, he brought up to his face. "Listen up Cyberspace!" he said. "I've got control of Cyantis, and everyone on this site is now under my control! But, I don't want to start a fight, not if I don't have to. I'm willing to work out a peaceful solution to this, but it means I need every member of the Grand Cyber Council here, _stat_. Failure to comply, and I'll start taking matters into my own hands, got it?" he glanced at Marbles. "What do you think of that, Doc?"

"Motherboard will stop you." Marbles vowed.

"Motherboard won't even apply to the situation once I'm done." Tehran said, and giving the camera one last wicked grin, he threw it aside, breaking it in the process.

Moments later, the magnetite shield went up, surrounding Cyantis and effectively cutting it off from the rest of Cyberspace...


	10. Spreading The Word

The gang reacts from this new development. Plans are made, both good and bad. Matt tells of his recent meeting. Filler chapter of sorts, but a fast-paced one. It didn't take me long to write this chpt. On another note, I start college tomorrow morning (Monday). Things posting-wise might get shaken up a bit in the weeks to follow, but I'll try and limit that. Oh, and wish me luck! :)

10.

Spreading The Word

The Cybersquad watched in horror as events on Cyantis suddenly took a turn for the worse, right up until the news transmission ended when Cyantis's shield went up. After a moment of static, Motherboard's face reappeared on the screen, looking grim.

"Oh no!" Jackie squealed in panic. "This can't be happening!"

"Who _were _those guys?" Peter asked. "If those guys really were Founders of Cyberspace..."

"Then dark times will have returned to Cyberspace, Peter." Motherboard said flatly.

"Oh, so soon?" Lara asked sarcastically. "Guess we didn't earn a little reprieve after beating Hacker after all."

"Now look, things aren't that bad yet." Digit said. "So those guys have a hundred or so people held captive, it's not like we haven't handled this kind of situation before."

"They _shot _people, Digit!" Jackie said bitterly. "I saw at least two cyborgs go down. People could be getting killed right this second!"

"Alex is on Cyantis!" Lara realized. "So is his father!"

"So is Dr. Marbles." Matt added. "So are a lot of good people. Jackie's right, this is an extremely dangerous situation and shouldn't be treated any less."

"Any ideas, Mother B?" Digit asked Motherboard.

"I believe the only choice we have the moment, Digit, is to accept Tehran's demands and permit an emergency meeting with the Grand Cyber Council to take place at the site, as he requests, and hear him through." Motherboard said.

"You do that, and then you're going to have that many more people stranded on the site!" Peter said.

"I am well aware of the risk, Peter." Motherboard said. "I am attempting to strike a deal with Tehran. I have sent a message to Cyantis offering a proposal. But, I would not, as the saying goes, 'hold my breath' over the matter. I highly expect the deal to be rejected. Tehran and his men have enough control over the situation to do that."

"So it's either his way or the highway." Peter said.

"More like his way or death." Jackie said, still bitter.

"There's got to be another way to do this." Digit said. "Some way to make everyone happy."

"That's going to be hard, as we don't know what it is that Tehran wants." Matt pointed out, shaking his head. "If only Inez was here, she'd have some..." he trailed off suddenly, his eyes going wide with remembrance, a smile spreading across his face.

"I hardly think this is a time to be smiling, Matt." Jackie scolded, hurt at Matt's apparent lack of sensitivity.

"Sorry, Jackie, but I just remembered!" Matt said, beaming with joy. "Inez is alive!"

Everyone gave him blank looks.

"You know, Matt, I had been wondering about your mental health for a while now, but I didn't think it was this bad." Peter said.

"If this is a joke, Matt, it's not funny." Jackie said.

"No, no, I'm telling you the truth, I just saw her in the elevator!" Matt said, pointing behind him.

More blank looks.

"Are you feeling okay, Mattie?" Digit said, reaching up with one wing to feel Matt's forehead, despite the fact he was too short to do so.

"My scans indicate that he is physically fit, but I cannot evaluate his mental health with mere scans." Motherboard announced.

"I'm not crazy, guys!" Matt persisted, getting angry now. "Inez is alive! I know it! I saw her! She told me!"

"Matt, she's dead." Jackie said flatly. "She died the same time Hacker did.."

"No, she didn't die when the Wreaker exploded, she..." Matt began.

"Technically, it was not an explosion, Matt." Motherboard corrected. "It was a neutramatter breach that..."

"I know, I _know!_" Matt said angrily. "But the point is still the same! Inez got off the Wreaker, and she's alive right at this moment!"

"How could she have gotten off the Wreaker?" Peter asked. "We all searched for any sign she escaped using what was at her disposal. The scans turned up nothing."

"That's because we forgot one thing!" Matt said. "Inez could and _did _escape to the neutramatter dimension!"

More blank looks, but this time of the good sort.

"Of course!" Digit exclaimed, slapping himself. "Why didn't I _think_ of that! That's a perfectly logical solution!"

"You mean she's really alive?" Jackie asked.

"Yes!" Matt said, pleased they were catching on.

"I must admit the theory fits." Motherboard acknowledged.

"Wait, wait, wait!" Peter interrupted. "Supposing this is all true, and Inez really is just stranded in the neutramatter dimension, then how could she have possibly spoken with anybody?"

"She's been doing a lot in the neutramatter dimension, trying to find a way to get home." Matt explained. "She managed to build this device that creates holographic projections of herself anywhere in Cyberspace. She used it just before I arrived here to explain things to me."

"In the elevator." Peter said.

"Yeah."

"So why isn't she still here?" Lara asked.

"Because her device...thing...is a power hog." Matt explained. "She simply ran out of power and couldn't sustain the connection any longer."

"Oh, that's really convenient, Matt." Peter said. "But we've only got your word on the matter. I won't believe this until I've got some proof."

"I have checked service records for the elevator Matt rode." Motherboard announced. "During the time Matt was riding it, the system encountered and error, and the elevator was stuck in-between decks for a period of fifteen or more minutes, during which an unknown energy signature could be detected within the car."

Peter whirled around to give Motherboard a surprised look.

"Ha!" Matt said. "That proof enough for you?"

"Whoa, wait." Digit said. "As good news as this is, we have bigger fish to fry at the moment. We need to deal with this situation on Cyantis first before we try and help Inez get home."

"Unless she has figured out her own way of getting back." Lara stated.

"No, she doesn't, despite trying very hard to do so." Matt admitted. "But Inez did know about what was going to happen on Cyantis! She tried to warn me before she had to cut the connection but didn't succeed. She probably knows more about these guys than we do. If we can just get her back..."

"We do not have time to wait, Matt." Motherboard said. "Tehran will not wait forever for us to come up with a plan to stop him. And Digit is right, we cannot focus on bringing Inez home at this time. Furthermore, doing so will prove to be problematic, as the plans for the portal generator to the neutramatter dimension have been..."

"...destroyed, I know." Matt said. "But we need to think of something."

"Right now we need to be thinking of how we should free those people stuck on Cyantis." Peter said. "I mean, look at who is over there at the moment. Dr. Marbles, Alex, Alex's dad, the news lady, the rest of the Cyantis Expedition..."

"...and two of my men." Hardson said harshly as she suddenly stepped into the room. "Davidson and McKinsey are trapped on that site as well. The CSEDS is urging me to use whatever means to bring them back safely."

"We are working on a solution." Motherboard said. "I have sent a message containing our requests to Cyantis, and I have just been sent a reply. The terms have been rejected, but Tehran and his men are willing to move the location of the meeting from Cyantis to their ship..."

"Good." Hardson interrupted. "Motherboard, gather the Grand Cyber Council, and prepare them for immediate departure to Cyantis."

Motherboard blinked in surprise at being order so harshly.

"Who put you in charge?" Peter asked, annoyed.

"The CSEDS, Peter." Hardson replied, looking a touch annoyed herself. "In the event of a military situation, such as now, we have the authority to do so. I will be taking command of the situation until further notice."

"Excuse me, major, but I don't think that's such a good idea." Matt said, narrowing his eyes in annoyance. "These people taking control of Cyantis might be Founders of Cyberspace, and even if they aren't, you and the rest of the CSEDS aren't familiar enough with Cyberspace affairs to handle this situation."

"Are you saying that you don't want our help?" Hardson asked bitterly.

"He's saying this is a diplomatic situation, major." Jackie said. "If you have been watching that news feed, you would've know there's still a chance to resolve this situation peacefully."

"Which is exactly what I intend to do." Hardson said. "We're going to have this meeting and hear out Tehran's terms, and work up from there."

"What if it's a trap?" Lara asked.

"Teams CS-1 to CS-4 are going to be escorting the Grand Cyber Council to the meeting and back, armed." Hardson explained. "If anything goes wrong, we have orders to take control of the situation and get the council safely back to where they need to go. A fleet of J-21s is also en route for Cyantis as of this moment, and will surround both Cyantis and the transport ship until this meeting is over, threatening to fire if anything goes wrong."

"You really think showing force is going to make this go smoother?" Matt asked.

"Major, it doesn't matter whether or not these guys are really Founders of Cyberspace." Digit said. "What does matter is that they clearly know how to use Cyantian technology. You don't know what kind of power they have because of that. They could shoot you and your fleet out of the sky long before you got within weapons range."

"These are my orders, Digit, and I'm going to carry them out." Hardson said. "And currently none of you have the authority to override me. I know there are some huge risks to this plan, but we can't afford to take the time to come up with a better one. We need to act _now_." she paused for a moment. "So, you're all welcome to come with, or you can stay here."

"I will go." Motherboard said. "I am preparing a network connection for my system as we speak."

"As for the rest of us, I think we'll stay here." Matt said. "Just in case things go terribly wrong."

"For once, that's something I can agree with." Peter agreed, folding his arms. "No offense, Hardson, but there needs to be somebody left over in case this plan goes horribly wrong, which I think it will."

"Think whatever you want, it's not changing things." Hardson said, turning to leave. "Motherboard, I want that council here, ready to leave, within the hour, and not a second later. Keep me updated of any new developments."


	11. Interlude

As the chapter title suggests, this is a kind of interlude chapter in-between situations. Inez makes a reappearance, and Tehran and his gang are working at restoring Cyantis while they wait.

11.

Interlude

Jackie sat at a table in the control room alone, fiddling with a coin she had found in her pocket. She was currently alone, as everyone else had left to go do other things. Matt, Lara, and Peter had all succumbed to the need to have some lunch, regardless of the situation. Jackie, however, was perfectly content to go hungry. Hardson had other matters she wanted to address in preparation to the proposed meeting with Tehran, and had returned to the CSC. And Motherboard was currently networking with members of the Grand Cyber Council and informing them of the plan, and her face was currently absent from her screen.

But then, with a sudden burst of static, Motherboard's face reappeared. "There." she reported. "I have contacted the Grand Cyber Council of the situation as requested, and they are now en route to Control Central to await further commands. They will all have arrived by Major Hardson's deadline."

"Whoopie." Jackie muttered flatly, still fiddling with her coin, and not turning to look at Motherboard.

"You are depressed." Motherboard noted.

"Didn't take a genius to figure it out, Mother B." Jackie pointed out, casting a glance at Motherboard. "But yeah, I kinda am depressed. I'm just worried about this whole situation, wondering if everything will work out in the end."

"As do I, Jackie." Motherboard assured her. "But there is an upside to this situation. We now have evidence that suggests Inez could still be alive."

"Yeah." Jackie said, making her coin spin on the tabletop. "But, not to say I don't trust Matt, but I'd kinda like to see it for myself."

"Presuming Matt is correct, then it is quite likely Inez will attempt to contact us again." Motherboard said.

"Yes, but _when_?" Jackie asked.

"I cannot say without knowing more information about the situation." Motherboard said. "It could be anywhere from days to..."

"Testing, one, two, three, testing..."

Jackie and Motherboard turned to look at the far end of the room. Standing there, with her back turned towards them, was a very familiar looking figure, looking around at her immediate surroundings as if to get her bearings.

"Inez." Motherboard remarked, sounding surprised.

Inez turned, and grinned at the sight of them. "Jackie, Mother B, good to see you again!" she said happily.

"Inez!" Jackie squealed loudly, jumping up from her chair and running forward to give her friend a hug. But she merely passed right through Inez like she didn't exist, stumbling to a stop on the other side of Inez, her arms wrapped around herself and not Inez like planned.

"Yeah, uh, I'm not really here." Inez said, turning around to follow Jackie. "I was hoping Matt would've explained this by now."

"Oh, he did, but I just forgot in all of my excitement." Jackie said, turning back around to face Inez. "Inez." she said, shaking her head. "It's so good to see you! We thought you were dead!"

"Yeah, I know, I've seen the memorial." Inez said sheepishly, gesturing with her head out a window, although the memorial currently couldn't be seen from there. "Kind of flattering, really."

"We are of course glad to see that you still live, Inez." Motherboard said.

"So I am, Mother B." Inez said. She looked around the room to see it was mostly empty. "Where is everyone else?"

"Elsewhere, we've been keeping busy here." Jackie said.

"Oh great, I picked this spot hoping you'd all be here so I could do some more explaining and only have to do it once." Inez remarked, annoyed. "But there goes that hope."

"Well, Matt said you had figured out a way to monitor what was happening in Cyberspace, couldn't you have used to see how many of us were here?" Jackie asked.

"Yes and no." Inez admitted. "See, my 'monitor', as you put it, directly ties in with the technology I'm using to create this holographic projection. I can't use both at the same time. Plus, as I'm sure Matt told you, this projector consumes a great deal of energy, and takes a very long time for it to recharge. I didn't give it enough time to recharge fully, so I didn't want to waste power checking to see if anybody was here. Even then, I'm going to have even less time to talk than I did with Matt, so I better get down to the point." She sighed before continuing. "Look, I was going to tell Matt this, but I got cut off before I could. There's a ship that's heading towards Cyantis, and on it are..."

"We know, the ship's already arrived and the people on it have revealed themselves." Jackie said.

"They did?" Inez said, looking worried. "And what did they do then?"

"They have laid siege to the site, taking the people on the site captive, and cut off Cyantis from the rest of Cyberspace." Motherboard replied. "The leader, a cyborg named Jacob Tehran, is demanding that he meet with the Grand Cyber Council at a location of his choosing immediately. The CSEDS has ordered that we meet his demands and try to resolve the situation as peacefully as possible."

"It's a trap." Inez said instantly. "I just know it."

"That's what we said, but Hardson's in charge now, and she's overriding us." Jackie said. "We kinda have to go along at the moment."

"Matt indicated you have more information about these cyborgs than we do, however." Motherboard said. "Perhaps you can relate us some more information."

"I can, somewhat." Inez said. "First off, you should know that these guys really are Founders of Cyberspace."

"We wondered that already." Jackie said. "But Inez, if they are Founders, then how did they get like how they are now?"

"I'm not sure on the details." Inez admitted. "Something about a dispute within their own numbers and a long hard journey. But they know Cyantian technology inside and out, much better than we do. They'll use it to their advantage in any way possible."

"Do you know what their plans are?" Motherboard asked.

"Not in full." Inez admitted. "I knew that they were going to arrive and then take siege of the site, and that their plans aren't friendly."

"Do you know what it is that Tehran wants?" Motherboard asked.

"Kind of." Inez said. "I'll tell you what I do know, but you aren't going to like it. Tehran wants to take..." she was cut short suddenly when her image suddenly flickered and wavered for a moment. Inez cursed. "Dang it, I'm already running out of power again! I can't explain the details, but know this, Tehran isn't to be trusted! Now I call back next chance I get, I promise."

Inez turned around again to face something she could only see on her side. Her image flickered for a moment, and then vanished once again. Jackie stepped into the spot Inez had once stood and looked around sadly.

"She's gone again." she announced sadly.

"But she will be back again." Motherboard reminded her.

* * *

Tehran dragged Marbles roughly across Cyantis as the other prisoners on the site were sudued, followed by his personal guard. Several of the cyborgs from Tehran's ship had already arrived on the site and had headed straight to the underground data core room, moving from console to console, activating systems that the Cyantis Expedition hadn't ever found in their examinations.

"Partial power restored to the site." a female voice reported through a radio Tehran had on hand. "You should be seeing the effects now."

As she said this, lights all over the site flickered on, casting a warm yellow glow over the ruins of the site.

"Good work, anything else to report?" Tehran asked into his radio.

"I figured out why the automatic repair systems failed to keep the site maintained while we were gone." the voice replied.

"Oh? What happened?"

"A control circuit down here burned out. Probably due to a passing cyberstorm. We've since fixed it, and have restored power to that portion of the site. Someone's going to have to manually go and restart the generator, though."

Tehran stopped to get his bearings for a moment. "We're in that general area, we'll do it." he said. "Keep me appraised of any new developments. Over and out."

He then changed directions, pulling the frustrated Dr. Marbles with, his two guards following him.

"So where are we going now?" Marbles asked flatly as they headed towards a building, this one having managed to stay intact better than some of the others.

Tehran gave the scientist an amused look and didn't reply right away. "What if," he began finally, as they approached the entrance to the building, "I told you I had a means of restoring this site?"

"We already figured out it could be done, and had plans to do just that before you came along." Marbles muttered.

"And how long did you think it would take to do that?" Tehran asked, as they headed up a crumbing set of stairs.

"A matter of months at best, why?" Marbles asked.

"What if I told you that my means would mean I could have this site fully repaired and completely operational by this time tomorrow?" Tehran asked.

Marbles blinked in surprise, but then his eyes narrowed in disbelief. "You're lying." he said. "That's not possible, even with Cyantian technology. It would take too long to build the replacement parts you're going to need."

"Oh, but it is possible, Doc." Tehran said, stopping at one floor and walking down a short hallway to a door. "Because we Founders of Cyberspace had something you've only experimented with at best."

"And just what is that?" Marbles asked.

Tehran didn't reply right away as he entered the room on the other side of the door and flipped the light switch. The lights came on, lighting the room and the sole item it contained. Marbles's eye grew wide as he recognized the device instantly.

Tehran grinned as he approached the portal generator. "Just a little thing we like to call neutramatter." he said.


	12. The Meeting

Marbles and Tehran talk. Then talk some more. The Grand Cyber Council arrives, Tehran shows off some stuff, and then sums up into one sentence why he's here. Which naturally ends the chapter. Actually, I had intended to get right into the meeting and get on with it, but I got distracted with the opening conversation with Tehran and Marbles and get around to it. The next two chapters will likely be covering the course of this meeting. It will mostly be talk for those chapters, but needed talk.

12.

The Meeting

It didn't take long to reactivate the Cyantian portal generator leading to the neutramatter dimension, and once it had, Cyantis's repair system took over. Automatically drawing neutramatter as needed, it began no doubt sending it to locations all over the site to various repair mechanisms, devices the Cyantis Expedition had found but couldn't get to operate. Immediately, these devices went to work using the powerful energy in neutramatter to create the parts need to begin repairs.

Within the hour, the site was abuzz with these devices, making miraculous progress in repairing the site. Tehran had taken Marbles to a balcony to watch it all in action. He was grinning; clearly this pleased him. Marbles wasn't sure if he should be amazed or worried. A fully restored Cyantis under Tehran's control could only spell trouble.

"Amazing, isn't it?" Tehran said, turning to Marbles. "I believe you owe me an apology, Doc, you said it couldn't be done."

"It's not this time tomorrow just yet, Tehran." Marbles pointed out.

"Please, Marbles, you can call me Jacob." Tehran said. "No need for us to be on a last name basis. So impersonal."

Marbles didn't reply, and instead watched a group of device work at repairing a fallen skyscraper, each floor of the building being completed in about a minute.

"It is amazing." he admitted finally.

"You see? We're making progress."

"But amazing as it is, Tehran, I worry what you have planned for it all."

"I _plan _to stay here, Doc, both me and what remains of my people. And hopefully, once we've gotten a few matters resolved, it can be done in peace."

"But suppose it never comes to that, like I'm rapidly suspecting will happen."

Tehran gave Marbles an amused grin. "You'd better hope it doesn't come to that." he said.

"Just what is it that you plan to do, anyway?" Marbles asked. "What do you really hope to accomplish from all of this?"

"A meeting with the Grand Cyber Council." Tehran said. "And it worked. I just needed to get their attention."

"You didn't have to start a fight, lay siege to an entire cybersite, and capture over a hundred people!"

"But your forget Marbles, Cyantis is _our _cybersite, and we have every right to do whatever we want on it. If we got the notion to start a fight and all of that stuff you said, then by golly, we can do it."

"You didn't _need _to start a fight, that's what I'm getting at!" Marbles said. "If there's something you need from us, you could've peaceably come to us and asked! We could've avoided all of this trouble!"

"Ah, but there was more to all of this than meets the eye, Doc." Tehran said, turning around and leaning on the railing so he could look full at Marbles. "That fight proved some very important things about us, things that needed to be proven before we could've taken a step further."

"I don't understand."

"Of course you don't. And you aren't likely to until after this meeting with the Grand Cyber Council."

"You know, there is one thing I understand by you and your people doing this, and that was the fact that you can't be trusted. Dang it, Tehran, we thought you were friends! Allies! We thought you were the Founders of Cyberspace finally returning, here to make Cyberspace a better place, something we were completely ready for! We _gathered _here to greet you with welcome arms, and what do you do? Shoot people down in cold blood and capture the rest, and start making demands! What I understand is that you have complete ruined your image by doing all of that."

"Okay, first off, Doc, I started that fight because I'm just cutting to the chase." Tehran said. "You'll see why in a little bit. Second, I _wanted _you to gather towards me, to have that false sense of security. I didn't like the idea of having to use force, but you were playing right into my hands by doing that. Third, sorry if doing that ruined your trust in us. But I expected that, and I hope to make it up in the end. Finally, I've already told you, _we are the Founders of Cyberspace!_"

"No." Marbles said. "You aren't. Because the Founders of Cyberspace wouldn't have shattered everything they worked so hard to create and very nearly bring Cyberspace to the brink of war all in one fell swoop just to get something."

"Then clearly, you didn't know the Founders of Cyberspace as well as you thought." Tehran spat bitterly, and turned away.

There was a moment of silence. It was finally broken when Tehran's radio chirped. He pulled it out and switched it on.

"Yes?" he asked.

"Long range sensors are picking up multiple ships approaching the site." the usual female voice reported. Marbles presumed she was Tehran's second in command. "Most of the life signs are human, but there is one craft that contains a large cluster of cyborgs. Their numbers are consistent with the Grand Cyber Council as it no doubt stands now. I believe they have come for the meeting as requested."

"Right on time, too." Tehran said, checking his watch. "We'll be right up. Out." he put away the radio and motioned for Marbles to follow him. "C'mon Doc, you'll want to be around this."

Marbles followed. As they exited the balcony, the two guards who had been standing at the entrance followed. Heading back down to the ground level of the site, they strolled back to the location of the teleporter Tehran and his men had used to first arrive at the site. The captured people were still here, all sitting down and guarded. Many look frightened, some looked hopefully at Marbles. After a moment's search, Marbles found Alex, Alex's father, Davidson, and McKinsey, kept separate from everyone else, but in the same position. They didn't appear harmed, but they did appear defiant. Marbles hoped they had the sense to not act rashly, though.

Tehran seemed to ignore it all, and walked right up to the teleporter and stepped onto the platform. His guards followed. Marbles paused beside the device, hesitant.

"Have you ever used a teleporter before, Doc, or been in one?" Tehran asked.

"Once or twice." Marbles said. "Usually during emergency visits to the Cybrary. It's not something I like to experience, though."

"Well, don't worry, these teleporters are much more advanced and sophisticated than the Cybrary's." Tehran promised. "The ride's much smoother, and actually preferred."

Marbles was still leery of the device. "What if I still don't want to do it?"

"I don't believe I gave you a choice, Marbles." Tehran said flatly. "Now get on."

Marbles relented and stepped onto the platform. Tehran pulled out his radio, switching frequencies.

"Tehran to transport ship." he said, "Four to beam up." and then, as the teleporter wound up to begin the process, he added, "I always wanted to say that."

The four shimmered for a moment, and then they shrank into four balls of light. The four balls then grouped together into one much larger ball. It shot straight up to the transport ship hovering above, and into it. They reformed into their usual selves in a small, circular room. The first thing Marbles did one there was check himself over. Tehran grinned.

"That wasn't so bad, now was it?" he asked, and then, nodding at the cyborg manning the control panel to the teleporter, and walked down the hallway. The guards motioned to Marbles to follow, and he did.

They didn't go far before they arrived in a large briefing room, big enough to house the council, with a viewport that looked out into Cyberspace. Tehran moved over the window. Out of curiosity, Marbles followed.

Tehran was still grinning. "They're here." he noted.

And so they were. Surrounding the transport ship from all angles was the entire fleet of J-21s, no doubt there at the order of the CSEDS to stand guard over the meeting. One ship, however, was the cybercoop, keeping it's distance. Tehran pulled up a scan of the craft on the screen, strudying the wireframe outline and the groups of dots that indicated people.

"Those are all fully grown humans, and they are armed." Tehran noted, reading the readouts, which were in Cyantian.

"CSC personnel." Marbles guessed. "No doubt several CS teams."

"But these are all cyborgs." Tehran said, circling his finger around a cluster of dots in the middle.

"The Grand Cyber Council." Marbles guessed again.

"Coming in under guard, are they?"

"Did you expect anything less?"

"Well, it will no doubt complicate a thing or two."

"Glad to hear it."

Tehran shot him a look. His radio then chirped again. This a time a different voice, this one a man's, came through.

"We've been hailed." the voice reported. "They're asking us to stand down and permission to come aboard."

Tehran thought for a moment. "Not going to happen." he said, to Marbles surprise. "Give them no reply." he then switched frequencies on his radio to the Cyantis channel. "Hey, are the master teleportation arrays down there repaired and online yet?"

"I made them the first priority." came back the proud reply. "The system came online just a few moments ago."

"Good." Tehran said. "Our guests have arrived and are ready to board. Let's not keep them waiting. You know what to do. Oh, and scramble the systems to the cybercraft they're on while you're at it."

"Scramble?" Marbles repeated, wondering what Tehran was planning here.

The radio gave no reply, and fell silent. As Marbles watched, a blue beam of light suddenly flashed out at the cybercoop, and then suddenly, the entire crew compliment on the ship vanished, teleported right off the ship. Pilotless, the ship veered off course for a few feet, then fell dark as it's systems were indeed scrambled. Then there was suddenly another blue flash, this time from within the room, and then suddenly the Grand Cyber Council as well as CS teams one through four were standing in the room. In the split second of stunned silence that followed, the only door to the room closed and was sealed shut.

There was a roar of voices as everyone spoke at once. Hardson, who was the apparent leader of the group's security compliment, began shouting out orders, raising her weapon to take fire. Tehran calmly held up his hands and waited for silence.

"Sorry for the unexpected jump of locations." Tehran said. "But that was a little...show, you might say, of our abilities. Now please, won't you please take a seat? Major, you may stand down now. Not a hair on any of the council's heads will be harmed during this meeting."

Hardson seemed unsure how she should react to that. Finally, she nodded to the others, and they all stood down, lowering their weapons. The council hesitantly sat down. Tehran took position to stand at the head of the table.

"First off, let me thank you for coming." Tehran said politely. "I know it may not seem like it, but I really want to get this sorted out as peacefully as possible. And now that you're all here we can begin. But before that, are there any questions you want to ask that just can't wait?"

"I've got one." Marbles said, standing next to Tehran, the only one who hadn't taken a seat save Hardson and her group, which were standing guard around the room. "Just how did you do that, anyway?"

"Cyantis has a kind of oversized teleporter built into it." Tehran explained distractedly. "Works kind of like a gun. Just point and shoot. Anything it hits is transformed into energy and stored in a special location while you move to point at the location you want them where you point and shoot again, and the process is reversed. Anything else?"

"Who are you and why are you here?" one of the council members demanded.

"Well, apparently this is very hard to get through your thick skulls, but we are, despite popular belief, Founders of Cyberspace." Tehran explained. "And we came here to finish what we started."

"And what's that?"

"Well, it's simple. We Founders of Cyberspace only want the best for Cyberspace, to make sure peace reigns here forever and always. But clearly our past efforts aren't working. We've downloaded your records, so I know. After we left, problems started arising here. Wars, rumors of wars and the such. You had a long and very nearly bloody conflict with a cyborg named Hacker that you've only recently defeated with outside help. Lives have been lost. You have been trying to rebuild what you've lost in that conflict, and have been struggling to get back to your regular lives."

"What does any of this have to do with you?" another member of the council asked.

"Simple." Tehran said. "We have a new plan that will solve everything. Clearly, leaving control of Cyberspace to you guys isn't working, so I am here to state that the Founders of Cyberspace will be taking control from here on out."


	13. Back Story

An argument breaks loose. Some interesting points are raised on both sides. Tehran reveals the story of the Founders as he sees it. A chapter of talking. The action should pick up again in the next chapter, when the meeting comes to a close.

13.

Back Story

The outroar was instantaneous.

"You really think we're just going to let you come in and take over Cyberspace?" one member of the council exclaimed. "Without any kind of a fight?"

"That's the general hope, yes." Tehran replied calmly.

"Well, you thought wrong!" another member exclaimed.

Several agreed over this, and began voicing a immediate declaration of a fight. Despite seeming worried, however, Tehran chuckled, and shook his head. Marbles didn't like his attitude to the matter.

"I'd like to see you all try." Tehran remarked, drawing a silence. "You're talking about staging a war against the Founders of Cyberspace, the most advanced race of cyborgs ever! Do you _really _think you can wage a fight against us and beat us?"

"We've come a long way since you left." one member remarked.

"True." Tehran said. "But not far enough to defeat us."

"He's right." Marbles admitted. "He's right, he's already proven to us that he still out powers us."

"See?" Tehran said, pointing at Marbles. "Even the good doctor sees the truth. You are nowhere near our level."

"That won't stop us." a member remarked. "We'll still find a way to defeat you."

"And the CSEDS will back them up every step of the way." Hardson added under her breath.

Tehran heard, and pointed a finger at her. "You, major, don't even belong here." he said flatly. "And that just further proves my point. You cyborgs couldn't even beat a pushover like _Hacker _without bringing someone from another dimension to help you. These people from the Real World, like the Cybersquad and the members of the CSC. There are some sciences you haven't even begun to touch. You've gotten sidetracked with wars and contentions to expend your energies towards improving your lives and encouraging peace. You've started battles that you've only won with sheer dumb luck, luck that's not going to last. People have lost their _lives _saving your skin, and some of them are even _cyborgs_. Do you know what you've all become? Dependants, always turning to someone else to solve your problems! You couldn't fend for yourself even if you tried! You've swooped so low that you're making other people do the dirty work for you."

"And that justifies your plan to take over?" the first council member asked.

"Of course it does." Tehran said, acting hurt. "If I don't, you're all at risk of destroying yourselves!"

"I think we'll take our chances!" the second council member exclaimed. "We won't ever surrender ourselves to the likes of you."

"You mean you'd rather defy the Founders of Cyberspace, the very people that have always made your lives better, the very people who have planned to help you achieve the perfect order since day one?" Tehran asked.

There was a moment of silence. Marbles gave Tehran a long look.

"What do you mean?" he asked.

"I _mean_, doc, that taking over was the plan from the beginning." Tehran said.

There was another outroar, but Tehran wouldn't hear any of it. He motioned for silence.

"I know what you're thinking." he said. "You've disillusioned yourselves into think that's a bad thing, when it's really not. We're only trying to help you."

"Ha!" one council member snorted. "I'd like to see you prove it!"

"Look at your own history, then." Tehran provided. "Cyberspace would still be in a state of turmoil if it wasn't for us."

"But you didn't try to take us all over, you gave us the tools we needed to sort out or differences!" someone objected.

"Tools you abused!" Tehran exclaimed. "Immediately you took those tools we worked so hard to build to make Cyberspace a better place and used them to make things _worse_! You every nearly would've obliterated yourselves if we weren't there to stop you! We were the only things keeping you together! It was then that we started to decide that maybe that _we _should take charge in order to prevent yourselves from wiping each other out!"

"Then why didn't you?" Marbles asked flatly, seeing a flaw in all of this. "You had the power right there and then. You could've taken us over easily. Yet you _left_. Why?"

Tehran sighed. "Some refused to see the light of reason." he admitted.

"You mean the Founders _we _knew." someone in the room said.

Tehran narrowed his eyes into a glare. "One might say that." he admitted. "But while several of us could see where it was all going, the people who mattered _didn't_. They actually thought that maybe our interference was _hurting _things, and thought maybe that by leaving you'd all work things out on your _own_. Furthermore, they were anxious to see what was out _there_."

"Yep, most definitely the Founders we knew."

"They thought staying here and _babysitting _all of you was keeping them stuck here. They were ready to _abandon _you. And they did, taking _us _with, simply because we didn't have the numbers to protest. And so we left, reaching another cybergalaxy and exploring the cybersites out there. We discovered many things out there. But then finally, the event we needed to happen occurred. We found a group of cyborgs not unlike yourselves that were at risk of wiping themselves out."

"We stopped to help them sort it all out peacefully, but it did not good. They wiped themselves out anyway, faster than before because we stopped to help them. Several rethought how we saw things, and finally we had the numbers we needed to confront the others. We were evenly divided now. We couldn't get the others to see our way, so we were forced to take drastic measures."

"You mean civil war." Marbles said, making the connection. "You wiped them out. That's why your numbers are so low! You couldn't get them to see your way, so you killed them _all_."

"They left us with no choice." Tehran spat.

"You murderers!" someone in the council exclaimed, standing. "You don't deserve to be called the Founders of Cyberspace!"

Tehran slapped the table in anger. "_They gave us no choice!_" he repeated. "It was either them or us! I'm sorry to say it, but the Founders of Cyberspace you're looking for don't exist! They never did! Both sides were flawed, you must _see _that!"

"_I'd _like to here the other side's story!" a council member said. "Too bad they're all _dead_, though."

"Yeah, really convenient for you, isn't it Tehran?" Marbles asked. "You've got no one to back up your story..."

"I'm not lying." Tehran growled. "But the point of the matter is that _we're _the best Founders of Cyberspace you are ever going to get. Are you really going to turn your back to us?"

"If you were really as good as you'd say, you'd let us put things to a vote before you just declared you were going to take matters into your own hands." one council member said.

"You wouldn't even do _that _if you were truly good, because we wouldn't _be _in this mess!" another added.

"And don't forget people were killed and wounded down there on _his order_." yet another added.

"It doesn't make any difference!" Tehran exclaimed. "Clearly, you guys can't see _the truth_! If you are going to be saved, I'll have to take matters into my own hands in order to stop you!"

"But what if that's not the solution, Tehran?" Marbles asked. "Maybe letting us get on with our lives un-interfered would allow us to solve things on our _own _without all this talk of bloodshed! I mean, _you _clearly want to start a war, but _we _don't want to, not unless you force us to!"

"Then just agree with me, and do what I say!" Tehran yelled. "Why can't you do that?"

"Because you are giving us a choice we will _never _make." a council member said.

"Well, I'm sorry." Tehran said. "But these are the choices you've got. Sooner or later, you're going to have to pick one."


	14. Call for War

The council declares their intentions. Tehran shows his lack of support for that idea. Slightly short chapter, as there wasn't much to tell.

14.

Call for War

"Oh, so we've got a choice, huh?" one of the council members asked hotly. "When did we get that?"

"You had a choice from the beginning." Tehran said. "Either you choose to do things my way or not."

The council members looked at one another suspiciously.

"And if we choose not do it your way?" one asked.

"Well, that would be most unfortunate, because then I would have to take action." Tehran said.

"So we don't have a choice." Marbles summarized.

"Well, that depends on how you look at it." Tehran said.

"So?" one of the council members asked. "Do we have a choice or not?"

"Oh, well, certainly you have a choice." Tehran said. "But if you choose wrong, then I have to get you to choose right."

"Then in the end you choose for us."

"Yeah, I suppose so. Wouldn't that be easier?"

"But where is our freedom?" one council member asked. "You are suggesting to take it all away, and for what? Just so you can have some power?"

"I have already explained it to you, you abuse that freedom, and now your losing it." Tehran said. "Maybe someday if you all behave, you can earn it back again."

"I highly doubt that." Marbles commented. "Tehran, this isn't about us at all. It's all about you. You, and the want to have power over us. You call yourself a good guy by..."

"_What is your choice_?" Tehran interrupted harshly.

"Well, that could take awhile to determine." Marbles said, folding his arms. "The council will need to convene and discuss the proposal, weigh opinions, and take votes to see where we all stand on the matter, and then repeat the process if need be. It's a very long and complicated process, Tehran, and it could take days if not longer to decide, and..."

"That won't be necessary, Dr. Marbles, we're already in agreement about what we want to do." one of council members said, standing.

Marbles blanked out for a moment. He had been trying to buy time with all of that. "W-W-We are?" he asked.

"Yes." the council member said. "And our answer for you Tehran is a flat out _no_. We will _not _surrender our rights to you. We will _not _allow you to take charge over all of Cyberspace, and we will most certainly _will not_ agree to this proposal, no matter what the conditions. Tehran, we request you either leave, taking your opinions with you, or you settle with what you have and settle to stay in peace. Nothing less."

"And what makes you think I'll say yes to that any more than you to me?" Tehran demanded.

"If you don't, then you can fully expect a full-fledged war on your hands, Tehran." the council member said.

There was a rousing cheer of approval to this, to Marbles dismay, who knew that a war was probably the very last thing they were going to want in the end. Tehran narrowed his eyes.

"You can't defeat me." Tehran said.

"Oh, but we can, Tehran." the council member said. "After our encounters with Hacker, we have developed a great number of defenses and are more than prepared with a full-fledged war with you. Furthermore, we _are _in agreement, so it seems pointless to..."

"That wasn't a challenge, council member." Tehran said flatly. "It was a statement. You really _cannot _beat me. I am too powerful, not at all like what you encountered with Hacker. You don't even have a fighting chance against me."

"Maybe _we _don't." the council member admitted. "But with the aide of the CSEDS of the Real World, which they have already agreed to back us up one hundred percent, we have at least a fighting chance."

"Is that right?" Tehran asked, glancing at Hardson.

Hardson silently nodded.

"Oh, well, if that's all, we can easily correct that." Tehran said, pulling out a remote from his pocket.

Marbles's eyes widened, seeing that nothing good could come from that. "No!" he exclaimed, lunging for the remote.

But he wasn't fast enough. Tehran pushed the button on the remote, and a wave of energy, beginning on the far end of the room and moving to the other end, swept across the room. It didn't seem to affect the cyborgs in the room, but it certainly affected the humans, reacting like a brick wall had slammed into each one of them, knocking each one of them to the floor and unconscious. Alarmed, the council all stood and started talking at once in a state of panic.

"Well, fancy that." Tehran commented idly, looking over the unconscious members of the CSC. "Your Earthling bodyguards are all unconscious. Can't imagine what happened to them at all."

Marbles shot him a glare. Tehran returned the look with a cruel grin, and pulled out his radio.

"Phase one completed." he reported, indicating he had suspected this would happen from the beginning. "Proceed with phase two." he glanced out the window in the meeting room out at the armada of J-21s that still encircled the transport ship. He pointed at the disabled cybercoop. "Let's start with the ship the council arrived in." he said into the radio. "Raise shields. Fire at will."

Marbles managed to shoot Tehran a surprised look before a flash of light lashed out from the transport ship and completely destroyed the cybercoop, tearing it apart. The J-21s reacted instantly, firing instantly upon the transport with their laser cannons. The shots never reached the ship, being stopped by a translucent and seemingly impenetrable shield. The transport ship fired again, this time into the flanks of J-21s, destroying several.

The J-21s continued fighting for several moments, before they finally saw they were losing several ships in the time it took to fire several useless shots against the transport ship's shields, and finally turned away and fled. Even though they were retreating, the transport ship continued to take pop shots at them until they were out of range. Finally, silence fell again.

Tehran turned to the council and grinned his evil grin again. "You're all alone now." he said. "And under my control. Better still, you can only blame yourselves for it. You wanted war. Now you're prisoners _of _war. You wanted bloodshed, and bloodshed you have gotten." he leaned on the table with both hands and looked them all over. "Now, let's chat."


	15. Warnings

The Cybersquad is apprised of the meeting's events, Peter rages, and Inez tries a new tactic. Another chapter bridging major events, so a touch ho-hum. :)

15.

Warnings

"They've been gone for a very long time." Lara noted.

"That meeting has probably already ended badly." Matt stated coldly, leaning against one wall, flinging his yo-yo up and down. "We should go and resolve everything."

"Not yet, Matt." Jackie said, pacing nervously. "While I agree that the meeting has probably gone very badly, we can't presume too much until we know more. For all we know, they could've resolved everything and are just out having...cake."

"Cake sounds good at the moment." Digit agreed, being optimistic.

"It's not like Hardson to not report in and say so, though." Matt said. "Furthermore to report in late. She's missed her usual check-in by what? A half-hour now?"

"Mother B, any change?" Lara asked.

"None that I can detect." Motherboard replied. "But that doesn't say anything. While my systems can still detect the presence of Cyantis and anything major occurring there, I cannot detect anything smaller than that, right or wrong. Jackie is right though. It would be unwise to take action when we are not aware of what has happened. For all we know, you could all be heading into a trap."

"Maybe." Matt said, reeling in the string to his yo-yo and pushing himself off the wall. "But we should be doing _something_. And not just sitting around here waiting for news we already have a good idea of what it's going to be."

A beeping noise started to ring out suddenly, and a light started to flash on Motherboard's control panel. Turning in his seat, Digit reached over to push the button associated with the light, only to discover there wasn't one.

"Huh." he said.

"What's up, Mother B?" Lara asked, looking up at Motherboard's screen.

"One moment." Motherboard said, looking distracted. Her face then grew grim. "I have news." she announced.

"And not good news, I'll bet." Matt guessed.

"The Grand Cyber Council was abducted straight from their ship upon their arrival. The meeting is then presumed to have taken place, but all communications with both the council and CS teams one through four were lost. After a period of time, the transport ship then opened fire upon the cybercoop the council arrived in, destroyed it, then proceeded to attack the escorting fleet of J-21s."

Matt sighed, scowling. "I knew it." he muttered.

"The J-21s attempted to return fire to the best of their abilities, but they couldn't defeat the transport ship's defenses." Motherboard continued. "They have retreated, and are now requesting a portal for a return home. There are casualties."

"How bad?" Jackie asked.

"Very bad." Motherboard admitted. "Several ships, along with their pilots, were lost, and several more were damaged in some way, most severely. I am opening a portal now, and they will be returning shortly. Seeing that the CSC is currently understaffed at the moment, due to the fact that more than half of it's staff can be presumed to have been captured by Tehran along with the council, I will need your help to tend to the wounded, Cybersquad."

* * *

What remained of the fleet of J-21s returned to the hanger bay in Cyberspace Command without event. The Cybersquad in it's entirety was there waiting for them, and quickly went to work. It didn't take long to see that the damage was very bad. Several of the surviving J-21s were indeed quite damaged, and so were some of the occupants. Fortunately, everyone who managed to escape from Cyantis would live.

That still didn't change the fact that their situation with Tehran and his followers had gotten any better.

"This is chaos." Peter muttered as he hurried down the empty hallway of the CSC, on his way to get some tools for Digit. "Pure chaos. I haven't seen chaos like this since we last fought with Hacker."

"Chaos." Joseph the mouse said as he scampered along beside Peter, intending to help. "It's a word that's been seldom used ever since Hacker." he sighed. "We didn't get a long enough reprieve from having to use it so often."

Peter nodded. "This is a very grave situation." he agreed. "And yet, I have to wonder if everyone realizes that. Everyone else back there is going about what they need to do so calmly. And yet I feel about ready to scream from it all. And then there's Matt, who's still going on about Inez."

"I heard about that!" Joseph said. "Are the rumors true? Is she really still alive?"

"Matt claims that she is." Peter admitted. "But that doesn't prove much. Seems like everybody _but _me has seen her now. So how can I ever know it's all actually true and not some kind of cruel joke? I mean, parts of it all sound so far-fetched, even by Cyberspace's standards!" He paused for a moment. "But then look at me. Here I am having a conversation with a _mouse_."

"Hey, there's nothing wrong with that." Joseph said. "A mouse is just as good a talking companion as..."

He trailed off suddenly as the lights in the hallway suddenly flickered, then went out, plunging the hallway into darkness. Peter and Joseph skidded to a halt, blinking rapidly to adjust to the sudden change in light.

"Oh great." Joseph said. "What happened?"

"Most likely, one of the circuits to the CSC blew again." Peter grumbled. "Someone will have to fix it later, though."

"Actually, nobody will have to fix anything."

Peter and Joseph froze, then they slowly turned around to face the figure that was now standing behind them.

Peter's jaw fell open. "Inez." he said.

"Hello, Mr. Doubting Tom." Inez quipped. "I heard all of that stuff of finding this all so very far-fetched."

"Inez!" Joseph exclaimed. "Wow! You really are back!"

"Well, back in the loop of things, at least." Inez said. "I'm still stuck in the neutramatter dimension."

"You're going to have to stay there for a little while longer, too, Inez." Peter said, bouncing back from his shock and back to his usual cynical self, marching forward. "In case you haven't noticed, we're kind of busy here trying to survive."

"I know, Tehran." Inez said, following. "He's just causing a lot of trouble."

"More than trouble now." Peter snorted. "He's out for war. He's already attacked and killed a whole bunch of people today, Inez."

"I know, I saw the damage." Inez said, jerking her head down the hall.

"Then I hope you don't mind if we don't focus our attention on you for the time being."

"I'm not trying to." Inez said, stepping in front of Peter, cutting off his path. "I'm trying to help."

Peter simply walked through her holographic image and continued onward. "How can _you _help when you're in a whole other dimension?" he asked hotly.

Inez fell short on coming up with a decent answer to that.

"Don't worry Inez, I think you're being helpful." Joseph offered helpfully.

"Thanks Joseph." Inez said. "I'm at least trying."

"Well, try harder." Peter said. "According to Matt, your little gizmo can allow you to appear anywhere in Cyberspace."

"Yes..." Inez said, puzzled.

"Then put it to use!" Peter exclaimed, rounding on her. "Use that to spy...or...something, look, I don't know! Think of something! Use it to confront Tehran, or use it to find out how Marbles, the council, Hardson, everybody, is doing!"

"But people could see me..." Inez began.

"Who cares?" Peter asked. "You aren't really there, no one could hurt you!" To prove his point, he swung several punches at Inez's image, all of them flying clear through. "You can use that to your advantage too! Mess with people's minds, even!"

"But..."

"People are _dying_, Inez!" Peter pressed. "We're trying to fight back, but at the rate things are going, we need help! _You _can be that help!"

Inez was silent for a moment. "Peter," she began, "you need to calm down and think this through. It's not that simple, you haven't considered the repercussions..."

"Inez, now is not the time to think!" Peter said. "Now is the time to act!"

And with that, he turned on his heel and stomped off, leaving Inez and Joseph alone. There was silence for a long moment. Then Joseph spoke.

"Don't listen to him, Inez." the mouse urged. "You know Peter, he gets annoyed over little things, and acts rashly."

"I know." Inez said. She was frowning. "But what if he's right?"

* * *

Slowly, but surely, Cyantis was starting to come back together. Even from the view of the window of his office onboard the transport ship, Tehran could tell this much. By tomorrow morning the site would be back together and fully operational, and then Tehran would really get the ball rolling for his plans.

Cyantis was key to his plans. Not only was his native home, it would be the source of his power, as it was the only place that housed all of the Cyantian technology that gave him the advantage he needed. He also intended to make Cyantis the capital of his future empire. But he first needed to make progress on founding that empire.

After he had the Grand Cyber Council alone in the meeting room and in his control, he tried to reason with them, and start founding his plans. The council was proving to be very resilient, though, and were not going to bend anytime soon. Tehran had predicted this, but he wasn't worried. They just needed the right motive to give in to his demands. A little 'convincing', so to speak. Maybe if some of their cybersites were threatened, maybe then they would start listening.

Currently, though, they were too enraged to hold any kind of civil conversation with. So Tehran had left them locked in the meeting room. They couldn't go anywhere, nor do anything, save sit and talk. They didn't have their guards, either. Tehran had their humans guards moved out of the room while they were still unconscious and had them locked away. So it was just the council in there, and they weren't going anywhere. Eventually, they will be forced to cool off, and then Tehran intended to talk to them again.

In the meantime, he had some time to kill.

He grinned, looking out the window at the view he had of Cyantis. "A simply beautiful view." he remarked.

"It's pretty, alright, but it's scarred by the fact of what's happening down there."

Tehran whirled around to see a figure standing there idly, like she had just walked in. But she couldn't have, the door was locked, and she couldn't have ever entered without Tehran hearing, anyway.

"Who are you?" he demanded. "How did you get in here? What do you want?"

"I'm Inez." the figure said, stepping towards him. "How I got here is not your concern. But as for what I want, I want to talk. And you, Tehran, are going to listen..."


	16. Battle Plans

Inez has her chat, and Mother B's got a plan. Also, per request from Max Jordan, I address the issue of Inez's parents being told that their daughter lives, and will probably follow up on it briefly later.

16.

Battle Plans

"Me? Listen to you?" Tehran asked, clearly annoyed at this statement as he stared Inez down. He shook his head. "You know, I don't like it when people make demands."

"You're one to talk." Inez said. "What's this I hear about you demanding you take command of Cyberspace?"

"That's different." Tehran said, sitting down in his desk chair. "This for their own good."

"A lie and you know it."

"Even if it was, how could you even prove it?" Tehran challenged.

"As easily as how I could tell all of Cyberspace what your _real _plans are." Inez said. "You were never in this for the good of cyberspace. You want power, and you think that simply because you're Cyantian, you can get it, too, either willingly or by force."

Tehran gave her another suspicious look. "How did you get in here?" he asked again. "Really."

"I'm not at liberty to say."

"Yeah you are, you just don't want to."

"That too."

Tehran tapped a command into the computer that sat on his desk, and glanced at the screen out of the corner of his eye. "So what is it you want?" he asked.

"It's really pretty simple." Inez said, taking a few steps closer. "You either back off and quit causing trouble, or leave."

"And if I do neither?"

"Then you'll face the consequences."

"A rather vague threat, if I may say so." Tehran typed in something into his computer without breaking his gaze with Inez. "How do you plan to carry it out?"

"Never you mind. Just know that I will."

In reality, Inez didn't _have _anything to threaten him with at the moment, but she planned to change that at the next available opportunity. Tehran seemed to sense it, as he gave her another suspicious look.

"So what is it?" he asked. "Guns? Bombs? Sabotage? Blackmail?"

"Maybe spying." Inez said with a shrug. "Seeing I got in here easily enough, I might just do that."

"No good, seeing that you told me what it is, now."

"Good thing I hadn't completely decided to do that, then, hmm?"

Tehran glanced at his screen again as it changed to display something else. "My computer says here that you're dead." he stated plainly.

"It's been misinformed."

"Nah. It's just predicting the future a bit."

Without warning, Tehran whipped out a laser pistol and fired it at Inez. Unfazed, Inez idly watched the shot whizz through her without harming her. Tehran blinked in genuine surprise, and lowered his weapon.

Inez gave him a grin. "I suppose I should tell you now that I'm not really here now." she said simply.

Now Tehran grinned. "Ah, I get it now." he said. "That explains how you got in here without alerting anybody." he stood again, leaning forward. "So where are you transmitting this from, hmm?"

"Like I'd really tell you."

"Fine. I have better ways of finding out."

"They won't work."

"I'll try anyway."

"They still won't work."

They stood glaring at each other for a long moment.

"You know, if you really aren't here, then how do you plan to threaten me to do anything?" Tehran asked.

Inez grinned again. "Ah, but don't you go underestimating me." she said.

"You done yet?"

"Depends. You got my message?"

"Oh, I've got your message. And I'm going to tell you now that it won't stop me. I'll carry out my plans no matter what you, or anyone, do."

Inez was still grinning. "So be it then." she said.

And with that, she suddenly vanished, like she hadn't existed to begin with. Tehran stared at the empty spot she had stood at for a long moment, then sat back in his chair, glaring at nothing. He then turned to his computer and began a program to trace the transmission Inez had produced.

"We'll see." he muttered to himself. "We shall see..."

* * *

Matt stepped into the command room of Control Central without much warning, but Motherboard wasn't surprised.

"We've taken care of the survivors from the attack." he reported. "All of the injured are stabilized. Jackie, Lara, Digit, and Peter should be coming up here shortly."

"Good." Motherboard said. "I have a possible plan for responding to this attack Tehran had conducted, but to save time, I will wait for everyone to arrive before I elaborate."

"Fine by me, Mother B. They shouldn't be long."

They were silent for a moment. Matt pulled out his yo-yo to tinker with.

"Matt, I wish to ask you your opinion on something." Motherboard said suddenly.

"Sure, Mother B, what is it?" Matt asked.

"I am debating whether or not I should tell Inez's parents the news of her apparent survival."

Matt gave Motherboard a bewildered look. "You mean you _haven't _yet?" he asked, shocked. "Motherboard..."

"I have, admitted, been putting it off." Motherboard admitted. "But I have a reason. Yes, it is true that Inez survived the incident on the Grim Wreaker, but she is still trapped in the neutramatter dimension, and is not here."

"What difference does that make? She's still alive! Her parents will rejoice at that!"

"That is the problem. I fear they will react too well to this news, and demand I take all action to bring her back now."

Matt furrowed his brow in puzzlement, but this expression didn't last as realization suddenly dawned upon him. "Ohhhh!" he said. "You mean stop everything and bring her back now, despite the whole situation with Tehran and his men."

"Exactly."

"Yeah, Inez's parents are the type who'd do that."

"There is also the possibility that we are, despite our best attempts, unable to bring Inez back to her rightful dimension." Motherboard continued, and upon seeing Matt's look, added, "We must keep in mind that the only known method of even accessing the neutramatter dimension has been destroyed, along with all of it's plans. There is the distinct chance that Inez will be forever stranded there."

Matt paled at the thought. "I sure hope not." he said.

"As do I. But I hope you understand why I am hesitant to tell Inez's parents of the news. I do not want to get their hopes up only to have them come crashing down again."

"Yeah, I get it." Matt sighed. "I suppose that would be a problem. But Mother B, don't you think they still deserve to know?"

"Yes."

"Then we should tell them. Maybe you shouldn't tell them everything just yet, just the basics, and empathize the point that there's a chance it won't work out and that we're going to do everything we can to get her back. But they should still know."

Motherboard paused for a moment, then nodded. "Yes, you are right." she said. "I will send a prerecorded message at the next opportune time I have. Unfortunately, I do not have time to tell them in person at the moment, so it will have to do."

"Will what have to do?" Jackie asked as she and the others suddenly arrived in the room.

"Tell you later." Matt said, then motioned to Motherboard. "Mother B's got a plan."

"What is it, Motherboard?" Digit asked.

"It has become clear to me that we will have to fight fire with fire." Motherboard said. "We will need to rescue the council by force, and there is only one way that I can see of to do that. As portals are unavailable, you will have to get in another way. A prolonged conflict is unwise, so avoid as much as possible. You will need to infiltrate the transport ship, locate Tehran's prisoners, and transport them safely off the ship and back here. If you can do anything else along the way that will interfere with Tehran's plans, please do so. We will need any advantage we can get."

"Okay, that all sounds good." Lara agreed.

"Only one problem." Peter said, the skeptic as always. "If we can't get to Cyantis by portal, and the cybercoop and half of the J-21 fleet has been destroyed, how the heck are we going to get there, much less hold our own in a fight?"

"You can take the ship." Motherboard replied simply.

Digit brightened up at this remarked, but the others where in the dark.

"Ship?" Matt asked. "What ship?"

* * *

At a secret location in the depths of Cyberspace, a portal opened on a small floating structure, and the gang all were spat out of it and crashed to the floor. Digit was the first up, and quickly ran over to a row of computer consoles and began typing in commands, the lights slowly turning on all over the station-like structure they were in.

"Digit," Peter began picking himself up, "What are you...holy..."

He trailed off as he spied what was outside the row of windows above the bank of windows. The others stood up and quickly joined Peter in his shock, stepping over to stand near the windows.

"Is that..." Jackie began.

"...the Grim Wreaker?" Matt asked, bewildered.

"It's the next best thing." Digit said proudly. "Remember when we were on Topsy-Turvy Island catching Gleamers for Hacker to try and win the Encryptor Chip, even though it wasn't the real chip?"

"No." Peter said.

"Before your time." Matt said with a grin. "Yeah, we remember, Didge."

"Didn't you ever wonder what happened to the Grim Wreaker II we used to get off the site?"

Both Jackie and Matt blinked, and looked back at the Grim Wreaker look-alike that floated out in Cyberspace beside the station with recognition.

"That's the Wreaker II?" Jackie asked.

"Most certainly is." Digit said. "And we're going to use it to pull this plan of Mother B's off."

"But I thought this ship ran on the power from Gleamers, and that Gleamers were really rare and could only be used once." Matt said.

"It's nearly been a whole year since that, Matt." Digit said. "Me and Mother B have both been working to take that all out of that stuff during that time, tearing out all of the Gleamer-powered stuff and replacing it with other power sources, as well as a few other things we've come up with. We're not finished yet, but she's flight worthy."

"So this is the ship Motherboard was referring to." Lara said, pointing at it.

"Oh yeah." Digit said, typing in the last commands into the console. "And we're going to use it to stage an attack on Cyantis..."


	17. Cyantis Restored

The Wreaker II clears all moorings, we found out what Alex and the other prisoners on Cyantis are doing, Inez makes contact, and Tehran's true intentions are revealed (not that they weren't obvious already, though). The action's building, and it'll all begin next chapter. ;)

17.

Cyantis Restored

Like it did on the outside, the Grim Wreaker II looked identical to it's predecessor, a fact Matt, Jackie, Lara, and Peter were all noting as they followed Digit through the ship's many corridors, some of them disassembled for Digit's and Motherboard's attempts to refit the craft for their needs, but were mostly left intact.

"Well, this brings back memories." Peter remarked as they walked, looking down the hallway.

"Bad memories." Matt muttered, thinking of Inez.

"This corridor looks exactly like the one we had that armed conflict in back when we had infiltrated the Wreaker to destroy Hacker's portal generator." Lara noted, looking around.

Jackie shuddered. "Don't remind me." she said. "We were really lucky to get out of that alive."

"This way to the bridge." Digit said, pointing.

They arrived in the massive room a few moments later. It looked like a mirror image of the original, except everything was powered down, there were a few consoles that had been left disassembled and open, and there was a large gap where the Gleamer power relay the Wreaker II originally sported had once sat. Digit flipped a switch and the lights came on, and everyone looked around.

"So, what do you guys think?" he asked.

"You sure this ship will pull through for our needs?" Peter asked, still skeptical about all of this. "It hardly looks fit for anything."

"Like I said, me and Mother B haven't finished fixing and upgrading everything." Digit admitted, strolling over to a console and powering it up. "But she'll fly, and she'll fight back. The laser cannon is fully operational."

Jackie sat down at a console, spinning it's chair around as she surveyed the bridge once again. "Seems to me Didge, you've been doing more than replacing all of the Gleamer-powered equipment." she noted. "What did you and Mother B plan to use this for."

"For a whole variety of things." Digit said, as the bridge started to come to life while he pressed controls. "We hoped to refit the ship to house a whole crew, and then put the ship to use going about Cyberspace carrying out any missions we might need for it. It's a good idea, but I never wanted to use this ship for war."

"It _is _a good idea." Matt agreed, regardless. "It reminds me of the time Inez and I ended up in that parallel universe. They had a ship they used like that, and it worked well for them." he paused. "Up until the time they got caught in a deadly civil war, at least."

"Yeah, we did get some inspiration from that." Digit admitted. "Point of the matter, though, is that because of how we've got the ship set up, it can't be operated entirely by one single person, at least, not easily, and not as precisely as we'll need it for this planned attack."

"Is _that_ where we come in?" Peter asked.

"Well...more than that." Digit said. "True, though, you guys are going to have to help be the crew."

"Can do, Didge." Jackie said, turning around to face the station she sat at and looking it over. "I guess I'm communications."

"Like we'll really need that on this trip." Peter muttered sarcastically.

"You never know, Peter." Matt said, watching as the last of the systems came online, and the viewscreen flickered into life, displaying the emptiness of cyberspace the station and ship sat in. "Now go find a station to sit at."

"We'll need someone at the weapons console." Digit offered, tapping a few final controls and moving to the front of the bridge.

Peter froze for a moment before his face erupted into a huge grin. "Cool!" he exclaimed, and hurried over to sit himself down at the appropriate console, just in front of Jackie's.

"I've got the science console!" Lara announced, sitting at a station across the room from Jackie's station.

"And I'll be the pilot." Digit said, sitting in the pilot's chair.

It was then that Matt realized that the recharger chair that had always served as both the command chair and the pilot's chair for the old Wreaker no longer sat at the front of the bridge where the pilot's controls were. It had been moved back to sit in the middle of the bridge. Matt placed a hand on it's back.

"Didge, what's this chair for?" he asked. "Why isn't it in the same location as it always on the original Wreaker?"

"Oh, well, that's because it's supposed to be the captain's chair." Digit replied, glancing back at the chair.

They all looked at the chair for a long moment. Finally, Lara asked the question.

"So who's going to sit in it?" she asked.

"Why not Matt?" Peter asked. "He's the only one who doesn't have a seat yet."

"I can't sit there!" Matt said. "I...I...I can't be a captain! I don't know how!"

"Oh, I dunno, Matt, you always were kind of a leader." Jackie said. "And a leader's kind of like a captain, so..."

"I think it'd be fitting, Matt." Digit said. "Besides, you won't really have to command anything. You can just sit in the chair."

Matt hesitated for a moment, then slowly lowered himself into the chair, adjusting his position several times before finding one he was satisfied with.

"It feels nice." he admitted.

Peter glanced at the chair. "Really?" he asked. "Like, how nice are we talking here?"

"Trade me spots, and you can find out." Matt offered possibly a little too quickly.

"Oh no, I'm staying here so I can be the one who blows stuff up." Peter said, gripping the weapons console protectively. "_You _can sit inthe chair."

Matt frowned.

"Running lights on, and we're ready for take off." Digit said. "Disconnecting docking latches now."

There were several clanking sounds as the Wreaker II disconnected from the station, and then slowly started to move away and out into space.

"Almost poetic." Jackie remarked.

"We're at safe distance for hyperspeeds..." Digit began, watching a gauge, holding a finger above a button, "...now."

He pressed the button, and the Wreaker II shot forward at super fast speeds, it's course set for Cyantis...

* * *

"You making any progress?"

"Yeah, I think I've almost got my hand free."

"You said that an hour ago. And the hour before that. And the hour before _that_."

"This time I think I've got it, for real and for truth."

"You said _that _an hour ago, too!"

"Just forget it guys, you aren't going to get free that way."

McKinsey and Davidson glanced over at Alex. "That's being real optimistic." Davidson said sarcastically.

"You've been trying to get yourselves free ever since we were captured!" Alex said. "And you haven't done it yet! Clearly, you can't do it!"

"A minor setback." Davidson said, trying still to free his hands.

Alex held up his energy cuffs. "These are also Cybercuffs 3000s." he said. "Impossible to break. Much less to slip you hands out of."

McKinsey looked at his own cuffs, then at Alex. "And how do you know that?" he asked.

"The Cybrary." Alex replied. "Just face it guys, the only way we're going to get out of here is if we're rescued."

"And we all know how well that's working out." McKinsey said sarcastically.

"Now wait, Alex could have a point here." Davidson said. "We can't give up hope on the others just yet. I'm sure they're still trying to figure out a way to save us, particularly Major Hardson. You know she isn't going to take all of this lying..."

"If they could, they would've by now!" McKinsey snapped.

"Now _you're _not being very optimistic." Davidson said.

"But Davidson, he's right." Alex said. "If they're going to rescue us, they'd better do it quickly." he motioned at their surroundings. "Cyantis is very nearly back in order."

And it most certainly was. Almost overnight, the cybersite had gone from ruins to an architectural wonder. Where there had been merely debris was now skyscrapers. Where there had been rusting, corroded circuits was now the most advanced technology known to Cyberspace. Sights of the automated repair system was becoming rarer and rarer. The site was virtually only moments away from being fully repaired.

And they, the prisoners, along with the rest of the Cyantis Expedition and the many news teams that had been on the site when Tehran and his men took over had sat and watched it all. They didn't really have any choice. They hadn't been moved since Tehran took over. They even still had the same guards, constantly circling the whole group of them, kneeling on the ground, armed so to deal with any "threats". If a rescue was going to come, it was going to have to come soon, and it was going to have to be good.

"What do you think will happen when this site becomes fully operational again?" Davidson asked.

"I don't know." Alex admitted. "But I do know that our chances of being rescued are going to go from slim to nonexistent. Tehran already has too much of an advantage as is. Once he gets this site completely under his power..."

"Shush." Alex's dad, who knelt beside Alex, and had been silent during the entire exchange suddenly spoke. "Be quiet for a moment. I think I'm onto something here."

Indeed, he looked like lightning had struck him, his face had brightened so much.

"Sir?" McKinsey inquired.

"I said shush." Alex's dad repeated. "I think I know how to escape."

* * *

Cyantis was nearly fully restored.

And Dr. Marbles had mixed feelings about it.

One part of him was amazed that Tehran had successfully carried out his word and had the site very nearly completely repaired in only twenty-four hours, Cyberspace time. Another was excited and pleased to see the site back to it's former glory. The rest was simply filled with dread, because Marbles knew what would happen then. Tehran would've all but won.

And Tehran knew it, too. He had been bragging about it, off and on, all night. He had dropped by to visit the Grand Cyber Council, still locked in the briefing room, every now and then to see if they'll agree to his terms, but they still wouldn't. At which point he resorted to gloating about how close to succeeding he had been. Most people wanted to try and punch him on sight now. In fact, two of the councilors already had tried, and failed. Fortunately, Tehran went easy on them and they weren't hurt. But Marbles feared what would happen the next time Tehran arrived in the room.

Sighing, he leaned against the window he was looking out of down to Cyantis, letting his forehead rest against the cold glass. "Things are getting worse." he murmured.

"And they're probably only going to get even worse before they get better, aren't they?" one of the many councilors sitting around the room, almost bored, remarked.

"If they get better at all." another remarked bitterly.

"There has to be a way out of this." one of the council members said, coming to join Marbles at the window. "But the question is, how?"

"Maybe I can help with that matter."

Everyone turned, seeing someone standing before the briefing room table that wasn't there before. Several council members gasped at the sight of her. Marbles looked outright floored, though, having no explanation for her being here.

"Inez?" he asked.

The council then suddenly burst into a frenzy of questions, all being asked at once. Inez motioned for silence.

"Quiet everybody!" she pleaded. "There isn't time for questions, so you'll have to settle for the explanation in brief!"

"Inez!" Marbles said again, this time as an exclamation. "You're alive?"

"Yes." Inez said, pointing at Marbles. "Let's make that clear first. Despite popular belief, I _didn't _die when the Wreaker exploded. I was able to escape via Hacker's portal generator and into the neutramatter dimension. I'm still there now. The only reason I can communicate at the moment is through some technology I've managed to develop with the neutramatter I have access to here. What you're seeing is only a mere holographic projection." and to prove her point, she backed up into the briefing room table, passing through it, and back again. "It looks like I could be stranded here for awhile longer, but know that I am still here and alive, and I'm trying to help with things here in anyway possible."

Marbles's eyes had gone wide as Inez explained all of this, seeing that it all made so much perfect sense, that he didn't know why he hadn't thought of it sooner. But he also thought of something else at the same time.

"Inez!" he exclaimed. "You don't have to be stranded!" he pointed down at Cyantis. "Tehran has a portal generator down there, connected to the neutramatter dimension! It's what he's using to rebuild Cyantis! You can use that to come home!"

Marbles saw Inez's eyes flare briefly with hope before she quickly hid it again, knowing there were more important things she needed to be doing.

"So noted." she said. "I'll worry about that later. But right now, you should know that help is on the way! Motherboard and the others have been working on a way to rescue you, and I think they've got a plan that will work now." she grinned mischievously. "They just need a little help from you."

"How can we help?" one of the council members asked. "We're locked in a room!"

"Not for long." Inez said. "I've figured out a way for you guys to escape. Here's what you need to do..."

* * *

On the bridge, Tehran stood at the front of the room, looking out the forward viewports down at Cyantis below.

"One minute until Cyantis is fully operational." one of the crew members on the bridge announced.

"Good." Tehran said, grinning. "Tell me the moment that minute is up."

He continued watching Cyantis calmly. But inwardly, he was celebrating like a mad man. Finally, after years of planning and preparation, it finally all came down to this. The moment Cyantis became fully operational, Tehran would have an immovable foothold in Cyberspace. And from there, he could stage an all-out invasion of Cyberspace, holding nothing back. He was confident that within months, the whole cybergalaxy would fall to him.

And then he could become ruler of it all. Just as it should be.

"Thirty seconds until Cyantis is fully operational."

Inez was right when she said that Tehran wasn't in this for the good of Cyberspace. All he wanted was power. And he had gone to far too much trouble to come so far to fail now. He was going to get that power that the Founders of Cyberspace had so shamelessly forbidden him for so long. They had even tried to banish him to get him out of their hair, but even that wasn't enough to stop him. He almost wished that some of them did survive the war he waged against them just so they could see how much they failed.

He bet that would really burn at their hearts. Here, the immortal Founders of Cyberspace, upholders of good and well-being, having taken on no task that they didn't complete...

...had finally failed.

And Tehran was enjoying every second of it.

"That's it!" the crew member exclaimed suddenly. "Cyantis is now fully operational!"

Tehran grinned again as the cybersite came completely to life, shining brightly in the green emptiness of Cyberspace.

"Who's the victor now?" he asked aloud.


	18. Subterfuge

Okay I lied, not quite to the action yet, but it's definitely building. _Next _chapter will have the action, promise. :)

18.

Subterfuge

The councilor yelped as she accidently zapped herself, and cursed.

"Careful, careful now!" Marbles quickly instructed. "Go slowly, or you risk burning out the whole circuit and then we're stuck."

"Well, in case you haven't noticed, Doc, we don't exactly have the _time _to go slowly at the moment." the councilor snapped.

"I know." Marbles said sternly, glancing back at the briefing room windows, where the light from the now fully restored Cyantis shone brightly. "But that still doesn't mean we should be reckless and blow our only chance of getting out of here. According to Inez's instructions, if we rewire that circuit and join it with the adjacent one, we'll burn out the lock mechanism to the door, and we'll be able to slip out, but that'll only work if the circuit in question is still active and online. If you burn it out before you join it with the other circuit, then we won't be going anywhere anytime soon."

"If you're so smart, then why don't _you _do it?" one of the many councilors watching complained.

"Because look at that opening one would have to reach through in order to reach the circuit." Marbles said, pointing at the small opening. "We need someone with _small _hands in order to do this. Mine are too big, and most of the rest of the you are the same." he patted the councilor who had taken on the task to rewire the circuit on the shoulder. "We're lucky your hands are small enough to do the job."

"Yes, lucky me." she muttered sarcastically.

"You've almost got it." Marbles encouraged. "Just bring the first circuit a little further to the right and connect it to the second. It shouldn't be too hard."

The councilor sighed. "Okay, here goes." she said, and stuck her hand back into the open panel, feeling around carefully.

She zapped herself once more in the process, but in the end, she finally got the two circuits to join. They flared briefly with bright light as the two energies from both circuits overloaded each other. After brief whiff of ozone, the lock on the door clicked, and the door went slack. Grinning broadly, Marbles gave the councilor another pat on the back, and then hurried straight to the door, slipped his fingers into the space in-between the two doors, and forced them open. They slid apart easily.

Marbles looked up and down the hallway outside. It was completely empty, and void of guards, just as Inez said it would be. Apparently Tehran was so confident that the Grand Cyber Council wouldn't be able to escape that he hadn't bothered, and as such was about to pay very dearly for it. Quickly, Marbles motioned for the council to follow him, and they all jointly, as a group, hurried down the corridor.

They didn't go far before they stopped at another door. Marbles stopped and keyed in the access code Inez had told him.

"According to Inez, there should be an armory behind this door." he explained as the door obediently slid open.

And Inez was right, behind the door was enough laser pistols for everyone in the council to have. They were quickly distributed out to everyone, and then they hurried on to their next destination in the great expanses of the transport ship. As they went, they encountered few other people, most of which they were able to simply avoid. The ship was apparently very sparsely crewed at the moment, and it was working to the council's advantage very nicely.

Regardless, though, they did encounter a handful of cyborgs from Tehran's crew that they had no choice but to battle. Fortunately, those that they encountered were either unarmed or unprepared, and were always outnumbered by the fully armed council, and always went down easily. The alarm for their escape still hadn't been raised, stirring the escapees onward, but Marbles knew it wasn't going to last forever.

Eventually, they arrived at their destination at the prison cells on the transport ship. Major Hardson and her cohorts from the CSC who had originally been the council's guards had all been put into one cell, forcefielded off, and unlike the council had been, they were heavily guarded. But the council had the element of surprise, and a quick firefight later, the prison deck was theirs.

"Marbles!" Hardson exclaimed in surprise as the doctor hurried over to the control panel and lowered the forcefield to the cell. "What are you all doing here? How did you get out?"

"It's a long story that'll have to be explained later." Marbles said as Hardson and the others quickly hurried out of their cell and were handed what weapons that could be spared. He swooped down and snagged one of the access cards from one of the fallen guards "We don't have much time. We need to get down the engineering deck and take over the controls for the shield power regulators and await for Inez's command before anyone realizes we've escaped."

"Inez's command?" Hardson repeated, bewildered.

"I'll explain that on the way." Marbles said as they hurried out of the room. "For right now, just run!"

And run they did, heading even deeper into the bowels of the transport ship, heading for it's very heart. But the heart of the ship wasn't their destination. Instead, fighting any resistence they encountered, they stopped in a room immediately adjacent to it. In the dome-shaped room was single power generator, flowing yellow energy through it's pipe-like ducts. When the council and their CSC guards entered the room, they immediately removed the room of any threats, then they hurried over to a large and complicated control panel that sat at the back of the room, facing towards the generator.

"Okay, this panel controls the shield systems for the whole ship." Marbles explained, looking the panel over. "We take this out, and the shields for this ship will go down, and Tehran will be vulnerable to attack."

"Okay then, let's take it out." Hardson said, raising her laser pistol.

"Not yet!" Marbles said, stopping her. "We need to wait for Inez's command."

"Why?" Hardson asked, defiant.

"Because timing is everything." Marbles replied deftly.

* * *

The Grim Wreaker II continued on it's breakneck pace to Cyantis.

"We're almost there." Digit reported from the pilot's seat. "I can get a good scan of Cyantis now." he frowned. "Guys, it looks like it's fully operational now."

"Somehow I'm not surprised." Jackie muttered.

"Guys, have any of you stopped to think about what we're going to do when we reach Cyantis?" Lara asked from her console.

"It's simple, Lara." Peter replied confidently, tapping at the weapon's console. "We go in, we attack, we rescue the Grand Cyber Council, we get out."

"Oh, that simple, huh?" Jackie asked sarcastically.

"Does it need to be any more complex?" Peter asked innocently.

"What about the shields the transport ship has?" Matt asked. "You heard the reports the pilots from the fleet of J-21s gave when they came back. Their weapons couldn't pierce it. Who's to say the Wreaker's will?"

"Well, it is more powerful, but I've been thinking about the same thing, Mattie." Digit admitted. "Somehow we've got to figure out how to get past that shield."

"Then look no further."

Everyone turned, and saw Inez standing in the back of the room.

"Inez?" Digit asked, surprise.

"Inez!" Matt exclaimed, happy as always to see his friend.

"Look, I don't have much time to explain." Inez explained. "But I've been very busy since I last saw you all, and I've been planning ahead for this attack. The council's already free, and I have them in position to take out the shields. They're waiting for my order to take the shields out, but I'll give it the moment you guys arrive at Cyantis. I don't know if the shields will go down right away, or for how long they'll be down, but they _will _go down. You guys have to be ready to react the moment they do."

"Will do, Inez!" Peter said, giving her a salute.

"You got the council free?" Matt asked, rising from the command chair. "How?"

"You forget just how much of an advantage I have from my end, Matt." Inez said, grinning. "Sorry, though, I can't stay and talk any longer, though."

"Why not?" Lara asked.

"I have an appointment with someone."

* * *

"Sir, I'm detecting a ship closing in our position, fast!"

Tehran whirled around, all the excitement of restoring Cyantis successfully vanishing in a heartbeat. "What ship?" he demanded, hurrying over to the control panel the cyborg sat at. "What class? Did Motherboard send it?"

"It didn't come from the direction of Control Central, sir." the cyborg replied. "I'm not familiar with the class of ship, either."

"Not familiar with it?" Tehran repeated, bending over to look at the console. "How is that possible?"

He frowned when he saw the readouts of the approaching ship. He recognized the design, but he never thought he'd actually see such a ship in reality.

"That looks like the Grim Wreaker!" he exclaimed. "But that's impossible, it was destroyed!"

"A lot you know."

Everyone whirled around and saw Inez standing in the dead center of the bridge. Those who were armed quickly reacted and fired at Inez, but their shots naturally just whizzed right through her, smashing into various parts of the bridge, causing minor damage, occasionally very nearly hitting someone. Inez just stood there, unfazed, and calmly allowed the guards to shoot.

Finally, Tehran motioned for them to stop. They immediately obeyed. He glared at Inez.

"You again." he muttered. "What do you want now?"

"You didn't heed my warnings." Inez replied, returning the glare.

"I didn't think I needed to." Tehran said. "I still don't."

"You're going to live to regret it." Inez said. She motioned with her head at the readouts of the approaching Grim Wreaker II. "That ship is going to cause you some real damage, Tehran."

"Hardly, our shields are up, they can't pierce them." Tehran snorted, folding his arms confidently. "Then our weapons will make short work of them."

"That's where you're wrong." Inez said, grinning. "I've been coordinating with some friends of mine, and they are currently, right as of this moment, in a position to disable your shields for an indefinite amount of time at _my _order. If you don't stand down right away, Tehran, I will give that order."

Tehran narrowed his eyes at her for a moment, then silently motioned to a pair of guards to go and check on the Grand Cyber Council. They obediently left to go carry out the order. Tehran turned back to Inez.

"It's an order you aren't going to carry out." he said.

"Oh really?"

"Yeah, really. Because, Inez, I've been doing my homework on you. You were right, I wasn't able to trace your signal, but I don't need to. According to the records, Inez, you died the same moment the Grim Wreaker exploded when it's neutramatter cannon overloaded. But clearly, you aren't dead, otherwise you wouldn't be here, so that only leave one other explanation for all of this. You escaped into the neutramatter dimension, and you are still there now."

Inez didn't reply, but she narrowed her eyes further at Tehran. Tehran only grew more confident, though.

"You see, Inez, we Cyantians know a great deal about neutramatter, a lot more than you do." Tehran explained, stepping closer to Inez's holographic image. "Naturally, we discovered it, and invented the means to access it and use it. It's what I've been using to restore Cyantis, and it's worked very well. But over the years, the Founders of Cyberspace encountered the need to install some security measures to our means of accessing the neutramatter dimension. And it's fortunate that I've gotten enough neutramatter to last me awhile, because I'm going to activate a device that will effectively cut off that dimension for this one. No portal will be able to reach it. Nor..." he grinned, "...will any transmission."

Inez's eyes went wide, and she made a mad dash for some unseen object on her side. Tehran whirled around and signaled to an officer on the bridge. That officer pressed a signal button, and instantly Tehran's order was carried out. Seconds later, Inez's image, in mid-jump, flickered and then vanished.

Tehran grin grew bigger. "Well, I think that's the last I'll see of her." he commented happily to no one in particular.


	19. Conflict Over Cyantis

Okay, _here's _the action. :) The Wreaker fights, Tehran fights back, Matt gets used to command, cliffhanger ending, that sort of thing. ;) On a side note, this is, as of this chapter, the longest Cyberchase fanfic I have written, beating all the other Cyberchase fanfics I have written before it, and will also be the first Cyberchase fanfic I've written to hit and go beyond twenty chapters (because we aren't done yet). ;)

19.

Conflict Over Cyantis

The Grim Wreaker II dropped out of hyperspeeds almost seamlessly a transition, and came to hover near the cybersite of Cyantis, brightly lit now that it was fully restored. Hanging over it, looming ominously, was the massive transport ship. Seeing it for real for the first time, the crew of the Wreaker felt uneasy about it.

"That ship's pretty dang big." Peter noted as Digit continued fly towards it. He paused for a moment as he worked at his console. "I have it targeted."

"Good." Digit said. "Let's hope Inez can carry out her end of the deal."

"The transport ship is hailing us." Jackie said, glancing over her console. "It's Tehran."

"On screen." Matt ordered boldly from the command chair.

Everyone turned to look at him.

"Well...somebody had to say it." he reasoned with a shrug.

Jackie rolled her eyes, half grinning, as she shook her head and worked with her console for a moment. "Patching him through."

A moment later, Tehran's face appeared on the screen, filling it up as he peered very closely into the camera. He grinned.

"Ah, the Cybersquad!" he said, looking pleased. "I was wondering when you guys would show up. Glad you decided not to keep me waiting any longer."

"We're here to give you an ultimatum, Tehran." Matt said. "Either you stand down and back off, or we will blow you out of the stars. Cyberspace will _not _stand for this any longer."

"Consequently, neither will I." Tehran said, looking serious. "Now let _me _tell you something. You don't stand a chance. Cyantis is fully restored and can fend for itself. Not that it needs to, because this ship will blow _yours _out of the stars long before it ever comes to that. Now you either stand down and back off, or _I'll _be the one who starts blowing stuff out of the stars."

"Well, we aren't backing down, Tehran." Lara stated.

"Well, neither am I." Tehran said back.

"Then you better get ready, Tehran, because you have a little conflict on your hands." Matt said, leaning forward in the command chair. "The only way you're going to settle this is through a fight."

"You'll loose." Tehran stated.

"Oh, we'll see." Matt said. He motioned to Jackie. "Cut the channel."

Jackie obeyed, giving Matt an interesting look. "And you said you couldn't be the captain of anything." she said teasingly.

Matt ignored the comment, as he watched Digit pilot the Wreaker closer to the transport ship. "Peter, you may open fire." he said.

Peter turned to look at him. "Fire?" he asked hesitantly.

"Yes, Peter, fire at will!"

"But...but their shields are still up!"

"What? But Inez..."

"Clearly something went wrong, because those shields are still up!"

They all looked up at the transport ship, reorienting itself to attack the intruding ship.

"Okay Matt, seeing that you've pretty much taken charge of the situation..." Digit began, "...what do we do now?"

Matt hesitated for a moment. "Evasive action!" he exclaimed. "Digit, make us a moving target, try and make us as hard to hit as possible! Peter, go ahead and shoot! I _know _the shields are still up, but shoot anyway! Lara, scan the ship, see if there's another way to take down those shields! Jackie, find a way to contact Inez!"

"What?" Jackie asked. "Matt, I don't even know if that's possible!"

"Find out!" Matt said, as Digit veered the Wreaker hard to the right and Peter fired the laser cannon at the transport ship. "I want to know what happened on Inez's end!"

The first shot the transport ship fired missed, thanks to Digit's crafty piloting. Peter fired the Wreaker's laser cannon repeatedly down at the transport ship as they soared over it, but as feared, the cannon didn't pierce the powerful shields. Peter kept trying, though, following through on Matt's request. Digit managed to continue to keep the Wreaker from getting hit for the next several shots the transport ship fired. But finally, the luck ran out as one shot impacted the side of the Wreaker.

Matt gripped the sides of his chair tightly as the ship rocked from the impact. He turned to Digit. "Were we seriously...?"

"Direct hit!" Digit interrupted. "Minimal damage, though."

"Still no luck on those shields." Peter said, shaking his head as he fired several more shots at the transport ship, to no avail.

"Same on my end!" Lara reported.

"Jax...?" Matt began.

"No, do you really think I'm just magically going to have some means to contact Inez?" Jackie said, as she worked with her control panel. "I don't even know half this stuff even works!"

"Matt, I'm beginning to think I know what happened." Lara suddenly announced.

"What do you mean?" Matt asked, turning to her.

"I'm detecting trace readings of neutramatter down there on Cyantis." Lara said, as the ship shook from another weapons impact.

"Neutramatter?" Jackie asked. "Where did that come from?"

"I think Tehran used it." Lara said. "That's how he managed to get Cyantis restored so quickly! Which means that if he has some way of gaining access to the neutramatter dimension..."

"...he has access to Inez." Matt realized, his eyes going wide.

"I don't know what he did." Lara said. "But it seems Inez stepped over the line, and Tehran reacted."

The conversation was interrupted as the Wreaker lurched violently from another hard impact.

"Look, as great as this conversation is at the moment, we've got bigger fish to fry!" Peter interrupted.

"Right!" Matt said. "Peter keep shooting! Digit, get him close to the most vulnerable parts on that transport ship! Jackie, help Lara find a weakness in those shields!"

"Matt, if we don't have something happen in our favor soon, we won't be able to keep this up!" Digit said as the Wreaker jerked again from another impact, gripping the controls tightly. "What should we do?"

Matt was silent for a moment, as another impact rocked the ship, something in the back of the bridge shorting out in a fury of sparks. "Hope it doesn't come to that, Didge."

* * *

Down in the engineering deck on the transport ship, the room vibrated slightly as something struck the ship. Marbles, Hardson, and all the other escapees looked upward as if the explanation could be seen there.

"I think the ship is under fire." Hardson said.

"But then that means Inez should've given us the order by now!" Marbles objected. "What happened?"

"I don't know, doc, but if we're going to pull this off, now's the time to do it!" Hardson said.

"Right!" Marbles agreed.

He and she jointly pulled out their captured weapons and pointed them at the control panel for the shield generator. Once they had their aim set, they opened fire.

* * *

On the bridge, the transport ship rocked slightly from the impact.

"Shields holding!" someone reported.

"Good." Tehran said, looking out at the Wreaker II as it flew past and grinning cruelly. "Target their engines next and fire."

But then the bridge rocked again.

"What the..." Tehran said as he looked around for an explanation. "We weren't hit again, were we?"

"Internal systems failure, sir!" one of the crew members reported.

"What?"

"Shields are collapsing!"

Tehran eyes went wide, and then he turned and ran to the forward viewport and looked out at the Wreaker, now suddenly seeing it as a much greater threat than it was a second ago...

* * *

"I don't believe this!" Peter suddenly exclaimed. "The transport ship's shields just went down!"

"What?" Jackie asked. "Was it something we did?"

"No!" Peter said, amazed.

"Way to pull through, Inez!" Matt cheered. "Digit, bring us around for another pass! Peter, target their weapons and engines!"

"You got it!" Peter said, and didn't hesitate to fire.

With his skillful work with the targeting computer, he took out three of the now very vulnerable cannons on the transport ship in fiery balls of fire, and then turned to shoot at the powerful engines, disabling at least one.

"They're stopping!" Digit reported. "The transport ship has been all but disabled!"

Peter let out a whoop of joy, and continued shooting.

* * *

Meanwhile, the escapees on the transport ship were making a run for it, because now that they had disabled the shields, everyone else on the ship knew exactly where they were now. Pretty soon, they were running for their lives, getting engaged in a firefight every step of the way. For the moment, they had the advantage of numbers, but already two councilors had been injured, though none of it fatal.

"We need a way off the ship!" Marbles said to Hardson as they both led the escape.

"Got it!" Hardson said, and pulled out her SKWAK pad. "This is Major Hardson of CS-1, calling on emergency frequency to anyone who can hear me! We are trapped aboard the transport ship over Cyantis and are under attack! We need help stat!"

* * *

"Hardson?" Jackie repeated when she heard the message come through on her console. "Major! This is Jackie! We're in the Wreaker II, attacking the transport ship! Tell us where you are exactly, and we'll rescue you!"

"Deck thirteen, section omega, hallway forty-two B!" came Hardson's reply.

"The secondary hanger deck isn't far from there!" Lara said, overhearing. "Tell them to head there!"

"Major, head for the secondary hanger bay on your level!" Jackie instructed. "We'll meet you there!"

She turned to Matt, who heard everything, and nodded.

"Digit, you heard the lady, head for the secondary hanger bay, and turn the Wreaker broadside." he ordered. "I think I know what they have in mind." he turned back to Jackie and Lara. "Jax, Lara, you better get down to the starboard hanger bay and clear the path for Hardson and her group."

Jackie and Lara nodded, and hurried out of the bridge to carry out the order.

* * *

With a spark, Marbles managed to override the controls for the secondary hanger bay's doors, and they opened quickly, revealing a straight doorway out into Cyberspace. Almost immediately afterward, the Wreaker II slid into view, it's starboard side facing towards the open hanger bay. It continued onward until it's own hanger bay lined up with the transport ship's, the bay doors open, showing Jackie and Lara standing there, waving them on over.

"Jump across guys, while we've got a chance!" they were both shouting.

"Jump?" one of the councilors asked hesitantly as they all started running for the open hanger bay doors.

"Theoretically, it's possible." Marbles said as they ran, he and Hardson in the lead. "There is an breathable atmosphere, there's just no gravity in this section of Cyberspace. We'll be weightless for the few seconds during which we transverse from the transport ship to the Grim Wreaker II."

"Good, our momentum will carry us across." Hardson said, nearing the doors. "Everybody keep running, and jump forward and out the doors! Do not hesitate, because here we gooooo!"

She and Marbles jumped out into the void of Cyberspace simultaneously. Hardson felt her stomach flip as she felt the grip of gravity vanish suddenly, but she was right. Her and Marbles forward momentum was carrying them away from the transport ship and straight through the open doors of the Wreaker. Entering the ship, gravity returned with a jolt, and they stumbled and crashed to the floor. Jackie and Lara helped them up.

"Good to have you two back." Jackie said with a grin.

"Good to be back, Jackie." Marbles said with a grin.

The rest of the escapees arrived in the Wreaker's hanger bay similar to Hardson and Marbles, and arrived without event. Lara quickly slapped the control to close the hanger bay doors, and pulled out her SKWAK pad.

"The council and Hardson and her men are aboard!" she reported to Matt. "Better get us out of here before our luck runs out!"

"Got it!" Matt said, then turned to Digit. "Didge, get us out of here, stat! Jump to hyperspeeds at the first opportunity!"

Digit nodded, and piloted the ship away from the transport ship, and out into the emptiness of Cyberspace quickly.

* * *

Tehran watched as the Wreaker flew away.

"They're getting away!" one of the crewmembers announced unhelpfully.

"No." Tehran said. "They aren't going to get away." he turned around and marched back to the center of the bridge. "Prepare to launch the fighters, have them scramble around and attack the Wreaker on my order." he turned back around to face the forward viewport and grinned. "In the meantime, activate command override protocol thirty-three."


	20. Overridden

So what is command override protocol thirty-three? What does Tehran plan to do with those fighters? Will the gang get away? All these questions and more are answer in the following chapter! :D

20.

Overridden

Joseph the mouse was sleeping peacefully on top of a warm console in the command room of Control Central when his peaceful sleep was shattered by a very noisy alarm going off.

"Yah!" he cried, jumping to his feet. "Who-what-when-where-why?!"

He looked around the room. Red lights were flashing all over. On her screen, Motherboard had her eyes closed and her brow furrowed, like she was concentrating very hard on something.

"Motherboard?" Joseph asked questioningly. "What's going on?"

"Foreign command prompt from an unknown source." Motherboard replied distractedly, more like an automated report than a response to Joseph's question. "Attempting to block command prompt and trace its location."

"Which means?" Joseph prompted hesitantly.

Motherboard did not reply, instead, her brow grew even more furrowed, and her eyes squinted even tighter. She bowed her head slightly in the process. Whatever it was, she was concentrating very hard on it.

"Motherboard, talk to me." Joseph urged.

"Source of command prompt identified." Motherboard reported suddenly. "Location is Cyantis."

"Cyantis?"

"Command prompt unauthorized. Employing firewall systems and anti-virus protocols to block command prompt."

There was a long pause as Motherboard did this. Finally, Joseph couldn't stand the suspense any longer.

"Well?" he snapped.

"Still processing information, please stand by." Motherboard said. "Please stand...stand...stand...staaaannndddd...." she fell silent for a moment, then her eyes suddenly snapped open, a vacant look upon them that Joseph did not like. "Locking down all cybersite systems."

Suddenly, every control panel on Control Central was locked out, and every door on the site slammed shut, sealing itself. Suddenly, Joseph saw that he was completely trapped on the command deck.

"Motherboard, what are you doing?" Joseph asked in alarm.

But Motherboard was no longer listening to the mouse. "Command override protocol thirty-three accepted." she reported monotonously. "Awaiting further instructions."

* * *

"One more minute until we reach the minimum safe distance to jump to hyperspeeds!" Digit reported as he piloted the Wreaker II away from the crippled transport ship and Cyantis. "Tehran still hasn't done much to react. I think we might actually make a clean getaway from this."

"Don't count your chickens until they've hatched, Didge, we're not in the clear yet." Matt said from the command chair.

The door to the bridge opened, and Jackie and Lara returned with Marbles and Hardson in tow. Hardson took one glance at Matt sitting in the command chair and grinned.

"So who put you large and in charge, Matt?" she asked, placing her hands on her hips.

"Because it was the only chair left for me to sit in." Matt admitted.

"Don't worry, he's fit right into the role." Peter quipped.

"Hey." Matt said, shooting Peter a glare before turning back to Marbles and Hardson. "Good to have you two back, though."

"It's good to be back, Matt." Marbles said, looking relieved. "I presume we're making our getaway now, correct?"

"We'll be jumping to hyperspeeds in less than a minute, Dr. Marbles." Matt assured him.

It was then that a light flashed on Digit's panel, and his controls suddenly stopped responding to his commands.

"Um, Matt?" the cybird said anxiously as the Wreaker started to turn back towards the transport ship on it's on. "I've lost control of the ship. Someone's engaged the remote piloting controls!"

"What?" Matt said, spinning around. "Override them!"

Digit worked furiously with his controls for several moments as the ship continued to fly back towards the transport ship under it's own power before finally throwing his wings into the air in frustration.

"Digit, override them, now!" Matt repeated, hurrying over.

"I'm trying!" Digit said, standing from his chair, as if that helped him work. "But I can't!"

"Marbles, get over and help!" Matt urged.

Marbles was already hurrying over, tapping at the controls on Digit's console as he worked to achieve the same thing. Finally, he froze, looking over the console in a state of shock.

"I can't override it." he said in alarm. "Motherboard has taken control of the ship!"

"She's _what_?"

"Taken control of the ship! I don't know why!"

"Well...stop her!"

"I can't just force the controls back from her! She has to relinquish them first!"

"Matt!" Peter suddenly called from over his console. "We've got other problems!"

He pointed at the viewscreen, where the transport ship could be clearly seen. Flying out of it's hanger bays in swarms was a whole armada of fighter ships...

* * *

Being the size he was, Joseph generally disliked having to type commands into a keyboard or console, as the only way a mouse like him could do it was if he did several odd dance-like moves to reach all the keys, and no matter how fast he did it, he was inputting commands several seconds slower than a person would. But currently Joseph was doing it better than ever as he fought vainly to try and get Motherboard to stop whatever it was that she was doing.

"Motherboard, don't do this to me." he whined as the 'controls locked' error message appeared again and again on the screen above him. "Why are you even doing this? And what does Cyantis have to do with this?"

Motherboard didn't respond. But the radio suddenly crackled and came on, and it _did _respond.

"Motherboard!" the voice of Jackie came through. "Motherboard, please respond! Give us control back to the Wreaker II or we're all dead! Motherboard, please respond!"

Joseph knew Motherboard wasn't going to respond, so he quickly hurried over to the radio to respond for her.

"This is Joseph!" he said into the radio's mouthpiece. "Motherboard has control of the Wreaker II?"

"Yes, and she's flying us straight into a death trap!" Jackie said, taking the surprise response from the mouse in stride. "Joseph, tell her to stop!"

"I've been trying to for the past several minutes!" Joseph cried. "She won't listen! It's like she's cut herself off from all of Cyberspace! She has all of Control Central locked down, and keeps ranting on about command prompts, override protocols, and Cyantis!"

"What?" a voice suddenly exclaimed in the background, and a moment later, Marbles voice came onto the radio, "Joseph, what exactly has happened there? Tell me everything!"

"Well, everything was fine until this alarm went off, and then Motherboard said something about an unauthorized command prompt from Cyantis and how she was trying to block, and then she said something about a command override, and has stopped talking to me ever since."

"When did that happen?"

"Just a few moments ago."

"Right about when we lost control of the Wreaker!" Marbles realized, a tone of panic in his voice. "Great transistors, Tehran must have some means of overriding Motherboard's systems and taking control of them! He's using her to stop us from getting away!"

"He's _what_?"

"Joseph, it's very important that you do everything that I tell you to do!" Marbles prompted. "You know where the communications center is, right?"

"You mean where all input and output information from all the cybersites in the cybergalaxy relay their information to Control Central?" Joseph asked. "Yeah, I know, what about it?"

"You need to head down there now, and pull the connection to-"

And then there was suddenly static.

"Dr. Marbles?" Joseph said urgently. "Dr. Marbles!"

But it was no use. The line had been, for some reason, cut. Hopefully, though, Joseph knew enough that he could piece together the last sentence Marbles had been speaking, and Joseph hoped that would be enough. As the doors were all sealed shut, Joseph dove into the nearest open alcove and quickly began crawling his way through the inner workings of Control Central to the communications center...

* * *

"Joseph, do you copy?" Marbles repeated urgently. "Joseph!"

"It's no use, Dr. Marbles, the channel's been closed!" Jackie said as she worked with her controls. "I've completely lost control of communications to Motherboard!"

"Those fighters are nearly in range!" Digit said urgently as he and Matt still strove and override Motherboard's control of the ship. "We gotta do something, quick!"

"Peter, lock onto the nearest fighters and start shooting!" Hardson ordered.

"I can't, I just lost control of the weapons!" Peter reported.

"They're in range now!" Digit said. "Fighters falling into a standard scramble formation!"

They all looked out the forward viewscreen to watch the fighters surround the Wreaker, still heading towards the transport ship. Matt sat down into the chair Digit had vacated.

"We're doomed." he realized.

* * *

"The Wreaker is surrounded." one of the crewmembers reported. "Fighters are in position and awaiting further commands."

"Motherboard accepting command override protocols completely, and has given us full control of their ship." another crewmember stated.

"Your orders, sir?" a third said, turning to look at Tehran.

Tehran looked out at the ship through the forward viewport, a wicked grin on his face.

"Take them out." he ordered.

* * *

Joseph hadn't really been thinking much about how he was going to carry out Marbles request as he hurried through the circuitry and machinery that made up Control Central to the communications center. To him, it seemed simple enough. He was going to go down there and pull the plug to any connections Control Central had to Cyantis. That should be enough to stop Tehran's attempts to override Motherboard's systems.

But when he arrived at his location, he suddenly remembered just how many cybersites there was in the cybergalaxy. Curving around to form a shape like half of a donut, the far wall of the room was covered with hundreds to thousands of wires stretching from the floor on up to the ceiling a floor above Joseph, each wire representing a cybersite.

For a long moment, Joseph just sat there, staring in awe at all the wires before forcing himself to snap out of it.

"Okay, don't have time for this" he muttered to himself, rubbing at his forehead for a moment before looking back at the many wires. "I have to start somewhere. Uh...okay, here's where all the 'A' cybersites are..."

* * *

The Wreaker shook under the relentless barrage it was receiving from the attack from the fighters, groaning from under the strain. Matt ducked as a stream of sparks rained down on him as he returned to his seat.

"There has to be some way to defend ourselves!" he exclaimed. "Some way to _fight back_!"

"There isn't!" Marbles said, gripping the console tightly as the ship bucked from the relentless attack. "Motherboard has complete control of the ship now, including _all _of it's systems!"

"Then we better get off this ship before we're all blown out of the stars!" Jackie said, leaping up from her sparking console.

"We can't, there aren't any craft of any sort onboard to escape in!" Digit said.

"And even if there were, we'd be shot down in a heartbeat by those fighters!" Hardson said, pointing a finger out the viewscreen as it started to fill with static. "Just face it, everybody, we can't win!"

Matt bowed his head for a moment, but quickly raised it again, wearing a determined look. "Oh, yes we can." he said. "If Inez can cheat death, then we certainly can."

* * *

"'C-X', 'C-Y', 'C-Y-A'...AH-HA!" Joseph cried as he finally found the Cyantis's cable, half way up the wall.

Gripping it with two paws, he tugged at it with all his might. Slowly, it started to come loose. It sparked once, then twice, then sparked violently for a third time before it finally came free, Joseph swinging from it, crying victoriously.

Then all of Control Central suddenly went dark.

* * *

Without warning, the Wreaker suddenly jerked, and veered off the course Motherboard had it relentlessly pursuing, it's console's flickering.

"What just happened?" Lara asked, as the ship lurched again from another impact.

Digit scanned his controls before replying. His eyes went wide. "I've got control back!" he exclaimed, taking the controls and moving the Wreaker away from both the transport ship and it's fighters. "I don't know how, but I've got control back!"

"In fact, it looks like _all _of the systems are back under our control!" Marbles noted with relief.

"Ha, I told you!" Matt exclaimed. "Digit, can we get out of here, now?"

"We can, but not quickly!" Digit reported. "The hyperdrive was damaged; we can't outrun those fighters with anything less than that."

"Guess we'll have to fight our way out." Matt said, turning to Peter. "Peter..."

"Way ahead of you!" Peter replied, tapping commands into his console. Pretty soon, the laser cannon was firing and taking out fighters in bright bursts of light.

The ship jerked as more weapons impacts still hit the ship.

"We're still taking damage!" Lara reported. "We can't take much more of this!"

Then Digit suddenly had an idea. "Everybody hold on!" he said, as he threw the Wreaker II into full throttle and dove it down towards Cyantis below.

* * *

"Sir, they're on a collision course with the cybersite!" one of the crewmembers reported to Tehran.

"Stop them!" he ordered. "I told you to take them out, so...take them out already!"

"We're trying sir, their evading our shots!" the crewmember reported.

"No response at all from Control Central, sir!" another reported. "I don't know what happened! I'm still trying to get Motherboard to respond, though!"

"Forget Motherboard!" Tehran snapped. "Focus on stopping that ship and it's crazy crew before it harms my cybersite!"

"Collision in thirty seconds!" the first crewmember reported. "Current trajectory suggests they will collide with the eastern edge of the site!"

"Take them out!" Tehran repeated.

"Trying, sir, but they're still evading our shots, the fighter's can't line up a good target!"

"Collision in three, two, one!"

There was a brief flash of light as the Wreaker seemed to come in contact with the site, and then it was suddenly gone. The fighters flew around aimlessly, searching for their lost target. Tehran watched the proceedings for several moments, his mouth hanging open.

"What happened?" he demanded. "Where did they go?"

"Unknown sir, they were there up until the moment they were going to collide with the site." one of the crewmembers reported. "Then they just...vanished. They didn't collide with the site after all, but they are just...gone."

Tehran stared out into cyberspace for a long moment before turning back to his crew.

"Find them." he ordered. "They're here somewhere, they have to be."

* * *

Panting, Joseph reemerged from the alcove of circuitry he had ducked into and collapsed on a neighboring control panel in the command room of Control Central. It was still dark all over the cybersite. Motherboard's screen was currently dark. Joseph wasn't sure what happened, but he had a couple of theories.

One, it was a simple matter of Motherboard's systems temporarily getting overloaded when all connections to Cyantis were severed, due to the fact that Motherboard was still receiving a constant data feed from Cyantis. Having that data feed be cut short probably messed a few things up, but it was nothing a reboot wouldn't fix.

The second theory was the potentially more dangerous one. Tehran, or whoever had gained control of Motherboard's systems, had anticipated this move, and had laid out a set of instructions for Motherboard to follow in the event that such a thing should happen. Probably something of the sort of reestablishing contact with Cyantis through any means possible once rebooted and the system was restored. Meaning that control of Motherboard would still be in foreign hands even after she had been rebooted.

So there was a potential risk to it all no matter what. Technically, Joseph could leave the system shut down as it currently was and just avoid the problem altogether. Granted, Motherboard wouldn't be under her own control that, but she wouldn't be under anybody else's control either. Presuming that current situations were resolved, Joseph could just leave the system as it was and wait for Dr. Marbles to return and let him examine the system in detail and decide upon the next move.

But Joseph didn't like that idea, because Motherboard's help could still be used. In fact, it may even be necessary. And besides, with all the systems on the site shut down, Control Central was pretty much entirely out of contact with the rest of Cyberspace. If something else bad was to happen somewhere out there, Control Central would never know about it until someone actually came here and physically told someone. And then what? Most likely Motherboard would still be needed then, requiring systems to be restored anyway.

Joseph sighed, and made his way over to the reboot button. He hesitated a moment, and then pressed it. Motherboard's screen flickered, then displayed a progress bar that started to fill as power to the cybersite was restored. The lights came back on, and consoles flickered back to life, no longer locked, which Joseph took hope with. The progress bar on Motherboard's screen filled, and then vanished, replaced by lines of code streaming across the screen as the reboot continued.

There was a sudden click, and then all of the locked doors in Control Central unsealed themselves and slid open. A moment later, Motherboard herself reappeared on her screen, looking confused, but otherwise normal. She looked around the room before seeing Joseph.

"Joseph," she said, "What happened?"

"Let's just say that it's good you're back to your usual self, Mother B." Joseph said with a relieved grin.

* * *

"Command to guard seventy-two, please report in."

One of Tehran's Cyantian guards, calmly strolling up and down the streets of Cyantis on guard duty, pulled out his radio.

"This is guard seventy-two, reporting in, all is calm here." he said.

"Guard seventy-two, what is your current position?" the voice on the radio asked.

"On the eastern section of the site, about fifty cybermeters from the center, command." the guard replied.

"Near the neutramatter portal generator?"

"That's correct."

"Guard seventy-two, we are detecting an unconfirmed systems failure with the portal generator, could you please go investigate?"

"Acknowledged, please stand by."

Taking his weapon in hand, the guard made his way towards the building that house the generator. Inside, the building was dark and silent, powered down and empty for the moment. The guard didn't immediately didn't find anything suspicious, so he walked up the stairs that led to the generator. He found the door partially open, but didn't find that too suspicious.

That is until he walked into the room, and found the portal generator completely disabled, and it's control panel hacked to bits, still smoking and sparking slightly.

"What the...?" the guard muttered, urgently rushing into the room without looking around further to see if the device could be salvaged.

This was how he failed to see that there was someone else in the room. With two well placed blows from a heavy metal bar, the guard crumpled into a heap, unconscious. Once he was down, his attacker swooped down and relieved the guard of his weapon, familiarizing herself with the weapon.

"Sheesh, first day back in Cyberspace, and I'm already having to take out bad guys." Inez muttered to herself as she went.


	21. Behind Enemy Lines

Inez blows stuff up. An escape attempt begins. Tehran swears vengeance. More of that kind of thing. :p

21.

Behind Enemy Lines

"Ha-ha, I've really fooled Tehran now." Inez remarked, as she started putting explosive around the room containing the portal generator leading to the neutramatter dimension. "Now we'll see who will get out of this victorious."

Her plan had been brilliant. She had already suspected Tehran wouldn't take letting her make him vulnerable for attack lying down as she had arranged to let the Grand Cyber Council escape and organize an attack plan between them and those on the Wreaker II. So when Marbles told her about Tehran's portal generator, she immediately took the time to locate it from within the neutramatter dimension.

It didn't take long for her to find it, for it was at a pretty obvious location at Cyantis. Once she had found it, she tracked it down from her side of things in the neutramatter dimension. She was pleasantly pleased to see it was already active. When she contacted Tehran on the bridge, she had been standing just within the neutramatter dimension, right beside the active portal. When the discussion turned AWOL, and Tehran made it clear he intended to cut all connections to the neutramatter dimension and strand Inez there, unable to contact anybody, she quickly made a mad dive for the open portal. She cut it real close, but she made it through and safely back to Cyberspace for the first time in over a month.

And better still, Tehran had no clue she had made it out of the dimension that had imprisoned her for so long.

It felt real good to be back where she belonged, but she knew she had jumped right into the middle of a very dangerous situation in the middle of enemy territory. She was by no means out of danger yet. Celebrating would have to wait.

At first, she just hung around the generator room, thinking that she had to have set off some kind of alarm that would eventually send someone here to investigate. But when no one ever came, she found herself a weapon. Opening a wall panel, she found a metal beam that, once removed, made for a good club. Once she had that, she pounded away on the generator itself and it's controls; mostly it's controls. It felt really good to vent some of that anger.

She then hid, certain that had to have alarmed somebody on the site. She was proven right when, not longer thereafter, a guard came along to check things out. Inez knocked him out and relieved him of his weapon, which seemed to be a laser rifle; an enlarged version of a laser pistol. She also found that the guard carried a fair amount of explosive. She recognized it; Cyberbombs version 3.7. They packed quite a punch.

Which led her to now. Having finished placing the last bomb in it's intended location, Inez idly left the room and proceeded down the staircase to exit the building. Once outside, she looked back up to where the general location of the generator room would be, then pulled out a remote, and pressed a button.

Without looking back, she continued onward on her path while an explosion gushed out of the side of the building, destroying the portal generator...

* * *

"He's coming." Alex announced suddenly.

And sure enough, the usual guard was making his way towards them, idly carrying his weapon in his hands. He looked bored, ready for some excitement. Fortunately, Alex's dad had come up with a plan to give it to him, although it may be more action than he was hoping for. He continued to draw closer, only a matter of paces away from Alex, his father, Davidson, and McKinsey, until he was finally there. A secret gesture was passed to McKinsey, and he readied to do his part in the plan.

Then the explosion rang out.

Surprised, everybody turned where the fiery orange plume was just barely visible. The guards turned and raised their weapons, their attention away from the prisoners.

"What the...?" Alex began, surprised.

McKinsey hesitated for a moment, then reacted according to plan. He lashed out with his feet, tripping the guard before him, then lunged forward so he could grab, even while handcuffed as he was, the guard's fallen weapon. Knocking the guard out with a brief kick to the head. McKinsey then rearranged himself and the captured weapon, and with a moment's struggle, fired the weapon and hit his cuffs, breaking them and freeing his hands.

He was instantly on his feet, taking full control of the weapon. He first used it to shoot an oncoming guard who had seen the first fall, taking him out, then he turned and used the weapon to free his friends. Davidson quickly picked up the fallen weapon for the second guard, and both he and McKinsey ducked down and began shooting and taking out the other guards scattered all over the area.

Most were caught by surprise. Some lasted long enough to fight back, but they were too ill-prepared. They eventually went down as well. Soon there weren't any guards, and the prisoners were no longer being watched. The four freed people quickly then went about freeing everyone else.

"Everybody grab whatever weapon you can and gather around the teleporter!" Davidson ordered, retrieving the fallen weapons from the other fallen guards and handing them out. "Quickly, now, we're not going to have much time before we start having to fight again!"

Everybody hurried to carry out the orders. McKinsey held up a moment to talk with Alex's dad.

"Hey," he said, "I guess your plan worked after all, so thanks. To be honest, I didn't think you had it in you."

"Hey, I just say a way to help, so help I did." Alex's dad replied, grinning, as they hurried to take up defensive positions all over the area.

* * *

"There was an explosion on Cyantis!" someone exclaimed on the bridge of the transport ship. "The portal generator's been destroyed! Automated repair system engaged! We're still tracking the source of the blast!"

Tehran looked thoughtful for a moment while he considered this new development.

"Could it have been weapon's fire that caused the blast?" he asked curiously.

"Possibly sir, though it would have to have come from a ship." the crewmember replied.

"The Wreaker?"

"Hard to say with the information we have."

Tehran thought for a moment longer, trying to decide how to respond and make sure things stayed safe.

"Have the people down on the site raise the energy shield." Tehran said. "If it was an attack from our illusive friends, that should keep them from trying it again."

"Yes sir."

A moment later, a bubble of transparent blue energy encompassed the cybersite below, fitting just overtop the magnetite shield that was still active below it. Once fully powered, the shield was completely impenetrable...

* * *

Inez wandered the streets aimlessly for a little bit, surprised to find that they were so empty. Again, Tehran seemed to be overconfident, and it was going to cost him. To her knowledge, he still had no idea she was even still in the picture anymore, although that explosion no doubt told him that something was up. Nobody still had appeared to investigate the explosion, but Inez knew it had to have been seen.

She was looking for a way to escape the general area at the very least, she found what appeared to be a hovering motorbike parked along the edge of the street. She presumed it belonged to a guard who wasn't present at the moment. Maybe it was the guard she had beaten in back at the portal generator. Whatever the case, she decided it was exactly what she needed.

Hopping onto it, and after quickly familiarizing herself with the controls, she started the device and zoomed off down the street, heading towards the center of the site where she remembered the data core was located. She didn't have much of a plan yet, but seeing that the core had controls for the whole site, it seemed like a reasonable place to start.

She hadn't driven far when two more similar craft appeared behind her with guards driving them. They sped up to gain on her, pulling out their weapons. Inez took one look at them, and then sped up to go faster.

* * *

"Sir, we've gotten an update from Cyantis." a crewmember announced suddenly. "They've found an intruder on the site."

Tehran turned to look at the officer, stunned. "What?" he asked, alarmed. "How?"

"Unknown sir. There are two security guards in pursuit as we speak. Target is avoiding capture. We're patching through a live video feed now."

Sure enough, a moment later, a video appeared on a computer screen and began displaying a picture of a person on a motorbike speeding away from the camera, presumably on another bike, the camera hurrying to try and keep up. Tehran recognized the person instantly, and jumped up and moved closer to stare at the screen with widened eyes of shock.

"Inez." he muttered.

His eyes narrowed into dark slits.

"Kill her!" he ordered. "Kill her now!"


	22. Desperate Gambit

Inez has a plan. We found out where the Wreaker II went. And Tehran has one more unexpected trick up his sleeve... ;)

22.

Desperate Gambit

Matt leaned forward in his chair. "Location?" he asked.

Digit didn't even need to look as he smiled. "Exactly where we planned to be." he reported.

The Grim Wreaker II was hovering directly under Cyantis, so close it was nearly bumping against the site's underbelly.

"Sensors indicate that a new forcefield-style shield has gone up, encompassing the entire site," Lara reported, tapping at her control panel, "We're safely inside both it and the magnetite shield."

"You know, we have a very good chance to end this once and for all," Hardson stated, "We have a great shot at the power core that the entire cybersite operates on. We take it out, we can destroy the whole site."

"That wouldn't take out Tehran," Marbles pointed out, "He's still on his ship. He could easily escape."

"It would still deal him a crippling blow." Hardson retaliated.

"Maybe so, but we can't forget everyone Tehran has as prisoners on the site." Matt said, "We shouldn't forfeit their lives just to opt for the easy solution to our problems."

"You call that maneuver _easy_?" Digit asked, bewildered. "We should be thankful the ship even managed to _handle _such a sharp turn two duck under Cyantis and still manage to hide us from sight!"

"Speaking of which, have the Cyantians found any trace of us?" Matt asked, turning to Jackie.

"Not that I can tell," Jackie replied, pressing an earpiece in her ear as she listened to the radio transmissions, "But...there's a lot of radio jabber going on at the moment, mostly between the site and the transport ship. Hold on, they're sending a video transmission through to the transport ship. I'll see if I can patch it through."

A fuzzy transmission appeared on the screen, depicting a person on a hovering motorbike, being chased by something. As quickly as it appeared, however, the transmission erupted into static. Jackie shook her head.

"I'm sorry, that's the best I can get." she apologized.

"Wait a minute!" Lara said, snapping to attention, then tapping at her controls urgently. "If I just saw what I think I saw..."

The transmission suddenly rewound a few frames then froze on that frame so that the person on the hovering motorbike could be seen. Then, the screen zoomed in on just the driver, so that she could be seen more clearly.

Matt rose from his chair in surprise. Digit squinted at the screen for a long moment, looking to be doubting what he was seeing.

"Is that...?" he began, pointing at the image.

"It's Inez!" Hardson realized.

"Tehran's portal generator!" Marbles realized. "She must have used it to escape the neutramatter dimension! Now she's on Cyantis!"

"Inez is back." Matt said plopping back down in his seat.

"Uh-oh!" Jackie suddenly exclaimed, still listening to the earpiece. "Tehran just gave the order to shoot her!"

Matt eyes went wide, and he twisted around to face the front of the bridge. "Digit..."

"Way ahead of you, Matt!" Digit said, working with the controls as the Wreaker started move forward and leave it's hiding spot. "Peter, you better have the laser cannon ready, you're only going to get one shot at this!"

"Uh...right!" Peter said, working with his controls.

Digit few the ship out from under the site, around the edge in a tight turn, then started skimming over the metropolis that was Cyantis. Jackie's eyes went wide as this occurred.

"Whoa!" she said, removing the earpiece from her ear due to all the noise it was emitting. "Radio chatter just tripled! Suddenly everybody's attention is on us!"

"Let's hope that buys Inez a few moments." Matt said. "Digit, ETA, from my mark."

"Just a second, Matt, and we'll be right over her." Digit said, as they neared a street heading towards the center of the cybersite, a number of spots could be seen racing down it...

* * *

The first shots came without warning, and they went wide, impacting Inez's surroundings as she continued to race down the street, but not actually hitting her. She knew they weren't warning shots, though, and continued forward, increasing the hoverbike's speed. Glancing in the rearview mirror, she could see that her pursuers were gaining on her.

And then, without warning, a massive bolt of green energy shot down from above and impacted the area the pursuers were at. With a yell, the ground around them exploded, flipping both bikes over, and their drivers free and into the air before they both hit the ground hard. Inez followed the bolt of light upwards in time to see the Wreaker II shoot by overhead and surge on towards the center of the site. Grinning, she added more speed still as she headed for her destination.

She arrived just in time for the Wreaker to shoot overhead of the site's center where Tehran had been keeping his prisoners, the prisoners all looking upward as the ship sailed past and continued onward, beginning to come about for another pass. Inez looked them over, and was mildly surprised to see that they were no longer prisoners, having liberated themselves and had gathered around the teleporter Tehran had the Cyantis Expedition build and then later used to infiltrate the site. He grin grew bigger still as an idea quickly came to mind.

The escapee former prisoners broke their gaze from the passing ship as they heard Inez arrive on her hoverbike. The leaders of the group, Alex, Alex's dad, Davidson, and McKinsey, took one look at Inez, and then their eyes went very wide. Alex looked like he might faint.

"Inez?" Davidson asked, surprised.

"Yeah, I know, it's a long story, but you're not imagining things!" Inez explained quickly as she hopped off the bike and hurried over to them.

Alex poked at Inez with one finger just to double check, however.

"I need a SKWAK pad, can you guys lend me one of yours?" Inez continued urgently. "I have a plan, but I need to be able to call the Wreaker, first!"

"A SKWAK pad?" McKinsey exclaimed. "You really think we'd have one of those after we've been Tehran's prisoners for more than a day?"

"There must be _something _I can use!" Inez persisted. She turned to the crowd of escapee prisoners. "Does _anybody _have some kind of communications device?"

The group shuffled about quietly as they searched themselves for something.

"I have a cell phone!" a news reporter announced hesitantly, holding up a pink flip-top cellular phone.

"That'll work, toss it here!" Inez said, brightening.

The reporter tossed it to Inez, who caught it and flipped it open, quickly dialing a specific number.

* * *

As Digit started to bring the Wreaker about, a ringing sound echoed out in the room. Everyone looked around to try and pinpoint the source of it.

"Is that a phone?" Hardson asked, frowning.

Jackie suddenly realized it was coming from a portable phone on her console. Frowning herself, she picked up and answered it.

"Hello?" she asked tentatively into it.

"Jackie?"

"Inez! Ha-ha! You really are on Cyantis! We saw you, you know!"

"And I saw you! Look, Jax, I have a plan, but I need you to come about and hover over the teleporter that Tehran left set up here."

"Got it, we'll do just that." Jackie said, and then relayed the instructions to Matt.

"You heard the lady, Digit, turn us around." Matt said.

"Already on it, Matt." Digit said as he gripped the piloting controls.

"Two land based laser cannons on Cyantis are targeting us and firing." Peter reported from his console.

The Wreaker tilted as it made a wide banking turn and heading back for the center of the site. The two cannons Peter had mentioned took their chance to shoot during this moment, firing three shots. The first two missed, but the third grazed the upper hull of the Wreaker, jerking it slightly. As such, the Wreaker brushed against the side of a skyscraper in the process.

"Sorry." Digit said as he adjusted their course slightly. "Arriving at designated coordinates, switching into a hover, and awaiting further commands."

"Matt, more cannons are locking onto us, we can't stay here long." Peter said.

Matt gave no reply, and simply sat in the command chair looking contemplative as he waited for Inez to do her part.

* * *

Inez pushed her way to the teleporter and began working with the controls. Alex, his dad, and the two members of CS-1 followed her.

"What are you doing, Inez?" Alex's dad asked, curiously.

"I'm expanding the emitter field to encompass the whole area, so we can teleport everyone at once." Inez explained as she worked.

"Is that even possible?" McKinsey asked.

"Trust me, I had a _lot _of time to think about this sort of thing." Inez said, thinking of her long hours spend in the neutramatter dimension as she made a few finishing touches.

The Wreaker flew by over head again, pivoted around on it's z-axis, then stopped to hover directly over the teleporter just as Inez had requested. Inez looked up at the ship and grinned.

"Right on time." she said, and pressed the activation button on the teleporter.

The five lamppost-like emitters that circled around the platform on the glowed brightly. Spreading out in all directions, the figures of everyone present wavered, and then shrank into little glowing balls of energy. The balls of energy then zipped together in the center of the collection of people to form one massive ball before it then zipped up towards the Wreaker II, passing through it's outer hull. The ball then stopped in the main hanger bay of the ship and broke back into the smaller balls, which all zipped to their respective locations in the room and reformed back into the people they were.

"They're all onboard!" Lara reported on the bridge, looking at the readouts on her screen with a grin.

"Peter, blast that teleporter off the face of this site!" Matt ordered, "Digit, get us out of here!"

The Wreaker started to pull away. As it did so, the laser cannon fired once and blew the teleporter away. A couple of land based laser cannons on the site fired back at the fleeing ship, but they all either missed or did little damage. Passing through the shields that surrounded Cyantis without event, the Wreaker II started to head in the quickest direction that would get them out of here.

* * *

Meanwhile, Tehran angrily watched all of this from the transport ship.

"They're escaping." one crewmember reported unnecessarily. "The laser cannons are trying to shoot at them and at least disable them, but they can't get a good lock."

Tehran slammed his fist down on a control panel in anger, creating a loud banging noise.

"Your orders, sir?" another crewmember asked hesitantly.

Tehran looked up, glowering and breathing heavily as he strove to keep his temper in check. "I've had enough of this." he said aloud. "Ready the neutramatter cannons, and fire immediately when ready."


	23. Escape From Cyantis

More and shoot and run stuff. Motherboard intervenes again (this time for the better). Getting close to the ending now. :)

23.

Escape From Cyantis

A beeping noise rang out as a warning light started flashing on Lara's control panel. She turned to glance at it, then her eyes grew wide, very wide.

"Matt, you're not going to believe what I'm detecting!" she exclaimed, twisting around in her chair to face him. "An energy signature, consistent with a neutramatter cannon preparing to fire, coming from Cyantis!"

All eyes turned to look at her.

"Tehran's got a _neutramatter _cannon?" Peter exclaimed, ludicrous.

"Not just one, but three!" Lara exclaimed.

"_Three_?" Marbles exclaimed, beyond alarmed.

"Digit, evasive action, and get us out of here, NOW!" Matt roared.

Digit needed no seconds bidding as he quickly sent the Wreaker II into a barrel roll that corkscrewed upward, away from Cyantis below, and towards Tehran's transport ship. It was a maneuver that saved them all, as all three neutramatter cannons down on the site fired in rapid succession, releasing three long bolts of deadly yellow neutramatter energy shot towards the ship. Thanks to Digit's unexpected maneuver, all three shots missed, but each of the three shots came too close to comfort to hitting the Wreaker.

One bolt grazed one side of the transport ship, doing mild damage. It veered off course for a moment, stunned from the impact. On a sudden whim, Peter reoriented the laser cannon around so that it pointed behind the Wreaker as it shot off into the depths of Cyberspace, and held down the fire button, firing repeatedly at the transport ship.

By this point in time, the neutramatter cannons had reoriented their aim and fired again as Wreaker leveled off and shot away from the site. Again, the shots missed their intended target, but again, just barely.

"There!" Lara exclaimed suddenly, slapping her control panel as the Wreaker continued to shoot away. "We should be out of range of the neutramatter cannons now!"

"Thank _you _Lara!" Matt cried out in relief.

"Guys, the transport ship is following!" Jackie exclaimed, pointing at the viewscreen.

Sure enough, despite Peter's constant firing at it, the ship was moving forward to attack.

"Confirmed, the ship's breaking orbit and matching our present course!" Lara added.

Matt turned to Peter. "Peter, can you...?" he began to ask.

"I'm already doing everything I can, Matt, I can't give you any better!" Peter replied.

"Digit, get us out of here as fast as you can!" Matt ordered, turning to their pilot.

"I'm trying!" Digit snapped.

"Well, go faster, then!"

"This _is _faster! The hyperdrive is still damaged, remember? We can't jump to hyperspeeds right now!"

"Best possible speed, then! Everyone else, come up with a plan!"

"Matt, the transport ship's firing!" Peter warned.

A few moments later, the first shots slammed into the Wreaker, rocking the craft...

* * *

Inez recognized her surroundings instantly as the teleportation process ended, and let out a whoop.

"It worked!" she yelled. "It actually worked!"

She turned around to look into the crowd that had been beamed up with her, and saw that everyone was easily here too, looking somewhat puzzled and confused, but otherwise okay.

"Yes, that really worked!" she repeated.

"What, you thought it wouldn't?" Alex asked, a little leerily.

"Well...there was a slight chance that teleporter would exclude some people, that we wouldn't beam up in the right location, that some of us would rematerialize halfway through a wall, that our molecules would get scrambled, or that the teleporter would just explode without doing anything." Inez admitted. Noting Alex's incredibly uneasy expression, she added, "But the chances of that were slim, and obviously, none of that _did _happen, so no need to worry about that." she made a comforting grin for added comfort.

Alex didn't seem at all assured, though.

"Okay, everybody, we calm down, and be quiet!" McKinsey was shouting to the crowd of people in the room, which were all starting to talk at once. "Just sit tight for the moment, and we'll get you all to safety here shortly!" he turned to Davidson, who was helping. "I mean, it's not like this tug's going to stick around to fight a battle it can't win with a load of defenseless people on board, right?"

He was proven wrong when the deck of the hanger bay suddenly lurched as the Wreaker drove into a maneuver it wasn't meant to handle. The inertial dampeners failed to engage adequately, and the momentum began knocking people to the floor and into walls. Yells started to ring out as the people began panicking once again from the sudden maneuvers. Davidson and McKinsey tried to restore the peace and reassure people to the best of their abilities.

"Everybody stay calm! Please don't panic!"

"Just sit tight, everybody! I said, sit tight!"

"C'mon guys, we need you to cooperate!"

Davidson knew they needed help, and looked around desperately for some. He spied Alex's dad, and pointed at him.

"Hey!" he yelled, "Alex's dad! Get over here and help us, please!"

Alex's dad nodded, and hurried over to help try and reassure everyone.

It was then that the weapons impacts from the transport ship started hitting. The first shot rocked the room, and knocked everyone down. The second did likewise, blowing out a control panel in a upper level of the hanger bay in a fury of sparks. People quickly put their hands over their heads to shield themselves from it.

"We're under attack!" Alex exclaimed in realization.

"But why?" Inez asked. "Why don't we just get out of here?"

"I don't know!" Alex replied, as the ship rocked from more impacts. "But from the sounds of it, we're not going to be able to take much more!"

"Right!" Inez said, turning, and hurrying for the door, with the intent of heading for the bridge.

"Inez, where are you going?" Alex asked, hurrying after her.

"To help!" Inez exclaimed back.

"How?!"

"I don't know, but we have to do _something_!"

* * *

"So Tehran gained access to my systems to use me to gain control of the Grim Wreaker II?" Motherboard repeated as Joseph finished explaining what had happened.

"Yeah, I know, I was just as surprised Tehran could even do that!" Joseph said.

"Actually, it makes perfect sense."

"It does?"

"Yes, the Founders of Cyberspace were the ones who created my systems. In fact, it is quite possible that Cyantis has a system designed specifically for the purpose of gaining control of my systems. Obviously for good intentions rather than the ones of harm Tehran attempted, but the sheer fact that he is Cyantian means he has access to all of the technology that the Cyantians had."

"Huh." Joseph rubbed at his ears for a moment. "I still can't believe you don't remember any of this, though."

"I was not in my right mind, so to speak." Motherboard said, then changed the subject. "Any new reports from the others? It is possible that Tehran has other surprising tricks up his sleeve that could threaten their safety."

"No, I haven't heard from them after your systems got hacked. Maybe you should try contacting them."

"I am trying, but there is interference. I am trying to compensate for it."

"Interference, what kind of interference?"

"I am still trying to identify it at this time." Motherboard paused, then her eyes grew slightly wider. "I am detecting large amounts of neutramatter radiation in the area of Cyantis, consistent with the firing of at least one neutramatter cannon."

"Say _what _now?"

"The Wreaker, however, is intact and not too seriously damaged. They are currently running from the site, and are likely to be out of range of any more attacks as serious as a blast from a neutramatter cannon. They are currently under fire, however, and taking damage, being pursued by another ship I am presuming to be Tehran's."

"Why don't they just get out there?"

"They are trying, but the Wreaker seems to have taken damage to its engines, and its top speed is greatly limited at the moment."

"So they need our help."

"Yes, and I believe I know how we shall do it."

* * *

"Hull breech on deck twelve!" Lara exclaimed, as the Wreaker rocked from the constant firing. "We have a kryoxide leak on that same deck, coolant levels dropping rapidly!"

"Targeting computer has been damaged, I can't get a clear lock anymore!" Peter reported. "Firing anyway!"

"The transport ship is gaining on us, and isn't backing down, despite the damage they are taking from Peter's firing!" Jackie reported.

"The engines have taken several bad hits!" Digit reported, struggling with the controls. "They get much more stress, and they'll burn out! They're already beginning to overheat from the loss of kryoxide!"

Matt ducked as a stream of sparks rained down on him from the ceiling. "We need a way out of here, now!" he exclaimed to no one in particular.

Then Motherboard's face suddenly appeared on the forward viewscreen, her face grinning.

"Ask and you shall receive, Matt." she said.

"Mother B!" Jackie exclaimed in relief.

"Hold on for just another moment, cybermates, I am opening a portal now." Motherboard explained.

Her face then vanished from the screen, allowing it to return what it was showing before. A spilt second later, a giant portal, big enough for the Wreaker, opened in front of them. Surging forward at breakneck speeds, its laser cannon firing almost blindly, the Wreaker plunged into the portal, the transport ship following. The moment the Wreaker was through, though, the portal snapped shut, just before the transport ship passed through as well. It continued onward throgh Cyberspace on it's last course, as it's captain raged madly on it's bridge...

Halfway across Cyberspace, though, the Wreaker II reappeared out of the exiting portal right next to Control Central. Dropping speed quickly, the ship entered a slow orbit around the cybersite, and finally for the first time since the battle had begun, a sense of calm fell over the ship's crew.


	24. War And Peace

The gang is happily reunited. But Tehran decides to start the war...

24.

War And Peace

There was a moment of silence as the crew of the Wreaker II looked out at the cybersite of Control Central that they were orbiting. Then, suddenly, a series of cheers began ringing out as they celebrated their safe escape. Jackie and Lara hugged each other happily, Matt and Digit high-fived each other, Peter grinned, and Marbles and Hardson shook hands. Matt and Digit where in the process of discussing just how close they had come to getting blown out of the sky when Digit suddenly trailed off.

"Digit?" Matt asked, frowning. "Something wrong?"

Digit didn't answer, and merely pointed with one wing behind Matt's chair. Puzzled, Matt spun the chair around to see two people step onto the bridge. One of them was Alex. The other, was Inez.

"Inez!" Matt yelled happily, and sprang from his chair and grabbed Inez in a hug, who wasn't quite prepared for the sudden action.

Heads turned at Matt's exclamation, and soon everyone else saw who was present on the bridge as well, and was actually, physically, _there_. Jackie let out a squeal of glee and ran over to join in the hug, quickly joined by Lara and Digit. Peter grinned and watched happily from afar, but wasn't the kind of person to jump up and hug somebody without warning. Besides, Inez was looking to be a little overwhelmed by it all.

Regardless, Inez was laughing in joy at the fact she was finally reunited with her friends, and happily suffered through the suffocating group hug, with Matt hugging the hardest, until the adults, Marbles and Hardson, finally came over and separated everyone.

"Welcome back, Inez!" Marbles exclaimed, looking quite happy himself at Inez's presence. "I trust you followed my advice and used Tehran's portal generator to get back to Cyberspace?"

"I did indeed, but boy, did I cut it close." Inez said with a nervous chuckle.

"How did you do it?" Matt asked eagerly. "Tell us Inez!"

"Okay, okay!" Inez laughed. "I'll explain everything. Let's see...I'll start at the very beginning of all of this just so we have all the facts straight..."

And with that, everyone sat down on the floor of the bridge for the next several hours, just exchanging everyone's tales of what happened to each of them during the whole fight with Tehran.

* * *

A fight that was only beginning.

Currently, Tehran stood on a balcony at the top of a tall tower in the center of Cyantis, watching as the damage that had been dealt to his precious cybersite was repaired, looking darkly out at it.

Things had not gone according to plan.

So that meant there was only one choice left.

Making his choice, Tehran turned to face the group of Cyantians that stood just within the balcony's entrance, waiting patiently for Tehran's orders. He nodded at one.

"When will the repairs to the site be complete?" he asked.

"Within the day, sir." the cyborg responded.

"And the transport ship?"

"A little longer, sir. Probably a week at most, perhaps less if things go well."

Tehran was silent for a moment, then turned to a different Cyantian. "How many fighters do we have?" he asked.

"Several squadrons worth, sir." the cyborg in question responded. "Not all of them are flight ready just yet. Most of them were salvaged from the ruins of the site and are still undergoing restoration, refueling, and various minor upgrades."

"How many are flight ready?"

"About three squadrons, sir."

"Do we have enough pilots to crew them all?"

"Yes."

Tehran turned to yet another cyborg. "What about mode of transportation? What do we have there?"

"So far, only the hyperdrives of our ships, sir." the Cyantian replied. "We are working on restoring the intersite portal network as quickly as possible, however. It should begin coming up in a couple of days."

Tehran nodded, and turned back out to look out at the cybersite he controlled. "Very well." he said. "So here's the plan. There will be no peace. The members of Cyberspace have rejected us, and demanded for war. We saw as such quite clearly when they attacked this site like they did. So if it's a war they want, it's a war they'll get."

* * *

So when the happy group of celebrators from the Wreaker II stepped into the command room on Control Central, they found a rather grim faced Motherboard with bad news.

"Motherboard?" Marbles questioned almost immediately upon entering, sensing the gravity of the situation already.

Motherboard hung her head for a moment before replying. "First off, I should congratulate you all on your good work at Cyantis, and bringing everyone home safely." she sighed. "However, I'm afraid our troubles with Tehran are only just beginning."

"Oh no." Jackie said. "What has he done _now_?"

"He has started the war he apparently claims we wanted." Motherboard said. "I have been receiving reports from all over Cyberspace of whole cybersites being attacked seemingly at random by fleets of fighter craft that match Cyantian design. The attacks are being adequately counterattacked by the inhabitants of each site and are holding their ground, but..."

"It's clear Tehran wants war." Peter commented.

"So did we." Hardson admitted. "The council were rooting for war in that meeting with Tehran."

"I was against it, but it was my voice against theirs, and that wasn't enough." Marbles added. "It was as Tehran said in response. We wanted bloodshed, so now we're getting it."

"It's like Hacker all over again." Alex noted.

"Except this is worse than Hacker." Inez said. "The conflict with Hacker was a mere skirmish in comparison. This issue with Tehran is different. This...is all-out war."

"For the first time in centuries, war has come to Cyberspace." Motherboard noted gravely.

A long moment of silence followed.

"So...now what?" Lara asked.

"Now we fight back." Matt said with a shrug. "Not because we want to, but because we now have no choice."

"It was either that or surrender to Tehran and let him take over." Hardson said with a snort, folding her arms. "Then we would've been off worse. I think war was inevitable the moment Tehran showed his face here."

"And he has the advantage with the superior technology." Jackie bemoaned. "How can we possible hope to defeat him?"

"Well, we aren't going to get anywhere by just standing here and complaining." Marbles said, stepping forward. "We need to get right to work to begin fighting back. Motherboard, I'll need a list of cybersite who don't have adequate enough protection from Tehran's forces so that we can begin arranging for some to be provided for those sites. We will also need an unused room, preferably here at Control Central, to be refitted into a war room, because we will need it. I also need to meet with the Grand Cyber Council and begin working out battle plans. Major Hardson, you should probably be there as well, as a representative from the CSEDS. I imagine we'll really need your guys help for this."

"You can count on it, Marbles." Hardson said, moving to follow him.

And with that, the happy celebration of their one victory stalled one, and suddenly, feeling very depressed, everybody went their separate ways to prepare for the war they knew they had already begun.

Matt turned to Inez, and sighed. "So much for that one moment of peace." he said.

"Just in time for me to come back, too." Inez said, shaking her head as she gazed out a window at the depths of Cyberspace, imagining the war that was going to take place here. "And I imagine it'll be a long time before we get that peace again..."


	25. New Order

Marbles, Hardson, and the council discuss the oncoming war. Alex's dad has a name (:o). And the start of a new order begins. :) Mostly just a talking chapter. Ever so mild references to "Parallelism", which are obscure enough that I have to wonder if you guys will overlook them. Also, a random thought, but I can't remember; has Matt been teased for having been turned into a mouse at any point during any of this fanfic? If not, I'd better do that next chapter. :p Speaking of which, next chapter will be the last. :)

25.

New Order

The screen showed a map of Cyberspace. On it, listed as dots, were various cybersites in any given area (for the whole cybergalaxy couldn't fit on the screen and still be able to make out individual cybersites). Surrounding them were smaller dots, which indicated ships and fighters. They were color coded, so to determine different allegiances. Green represented the free cyborgs of Cyberspace. Red belonged to Tehran's forces.

Standing just below this screen, watching it, was Dr, Marbles, Hardson, and the Grand Cyber Council. Marbles pointed at the screen as he explained their situation.

"...as you can no doubt see, Tehran's forces are relatively thin at the moment." he was saying. "It would appear to be a fleet of fighters totaling to no more than six score, with about four larger carrier ships to transport them all from destination to destination. Each carrier carries only about thirty, it would seem, so only thirty fighters plus the carrier itself are only attacking a cybersite at any given time. We already have received plenty of reports from attacked cybersites saying that, given they have adequate defenses, the fighters are easy to down, but the carriers seem to be protected by a similar shielding system to the transport ship that brought these rouge Cyantians here in the first place. Casualties have, thankfully, been light so far, and the only cybersite fallen to Tehran's control was CS-556060003477080, which was uninhabited, so no life was harmed that we know of. I would presume Tehran merely wanted it to establish an outpost on it or something of the sort. But, the evidence it clear, ladies and gentlemen. Tehran wants a war, and he's getting it."

There was a long moment of silence.

"Well, at least this isn't as bad as I was expecting." one councilmember remarked. "Given the technology we know Tehran has access to, it could be a lot worse."

"Very true, but I think what we're seeing now is only the beginning of the war." Marbles deduced. "Tehran's both testing his boundaries, determining the defensive status of each cybersite, gaining control of what sites he can now before we begin fighting back, and, most importantly, buying himself time to prepare for his second wave, so to speak. He's trying to keep us busy while he preps for his _real _first strike."

"The question is what it is, and where it'll be." another councilmember said.

"What's clear is that we have to begin preparing for this war now." Marbles said. "Many cybersites no longer have a means of fighting back. Some never did. Some now have obsolete defenses intended for the likes of Hacker, but wouldn't stand a chance against the likes of Tehran. Some merely have defensive technologies such as shields and no offensive technologies. Some purely don't have enough. We need to correct _all _of this if we intend to win this war."

"I think our principle concern here is protecting the people." another councilmember said. "We should make sure that they can look after themselves if we can't get to them fast enough."

"Agreed." Marbles said, nodding. "Tehran will undoubtably fight ruthlessly. He did so at Cyantis, he'll do so again. Our first priority is making sure the citizens of Cyberspace are safe from being terribly defeated, if not worse."

Hardson, however, had other opinions. "Dr. Marbles, don't take this the wrong way, but I disagree." she said. "You said it yourself, Tehran's using these attacks to buy himself time to stage a bigger and better strike at us. So let's not give him the chance. I say we strike at him here and now, and defeat him as quickly as possible, _before _he has much of a chance to hurt anybody."

There were several murmurs of agreement from the council. Marbles was silent for a moment, picking the words he wanted to say in response carefully before he spoke.

"I see the logic in that." he admitted finally. "But Major Hardson, you saw the battle we just _had _at Cyantis. We were extremely lucky to escape that alive and relatively unhurt like we did. As much as we don't like it, we have to face facts and see that Tehran had the advantage over us at this time. He has access to a fully restored Cyantis, and thereby has access to all of it's technologies, some of which we can't even _begin _to comprehend. Not only that, but to conduct a strike of the magnitude that you're proposing Hardson would require an army, and a fleet of powerful, which we simply don't have. The closest we have is the Wreaker II, and she's not ready for it, particularly now that she's suffered some serious battle damage."

"We _had_ chance to end this all by destroying Cyantis, but we turned down that chance." Hardson said. "Now, I'm not saying we should've when we had the chance, but if we had that chance once, maybe we can get that chance again."

"That's just it, I don't think we will, major." Marbles pressed. "Tehran will have learned from his mistakes, and will take steps to prevent them from happening again. Tehran is not like Hacker, so we shouldn't treat him as such. The attack you're proposing just won't work, Hardson." he paused. "But, we will need your help."

"Oh really?" Hardson asked, skeptical.

"Cyberspace hasn't faced a war like this in many years." Marbles explained. "We are not a race of warriors. We're new to this. You, and the CSEDS, are not. You can provide us with some invaluable input regarding various war affairs, and, within reason, provide advice on how to win various battles we will no doubt face."

"I just _gave _you some advice."

"And _I _explained why we couldn't do it." Marbles said. "I said, within reason, meaning we're not always going to take your advice. I know you don't like that, but let's face it. You know about war. We know everything about Cyberspace. Combine those two traits together, and we can win this war. But we're going to _have _to work together and be understanding, got it?"

Hardson hesitated, then nodded. "But what's your plan, Marbles?" she asked. "Once you've got Cyberspace ready for this war, then what?"

"Then we fight back." someone in the council said.

"But there's more to it than that." Hardson said. "If your conflicts with Hacker taught you anything, it's that you can't just fight back blindly. You have to have some kind of plan, some kind of strategy. Tehran's clearly got one. Now you guys need to come up with one." she paused, looking the group over, and then deciding they needed prompting, turned to Marbles. "You said that a full attack on Cyantis would require a fleet of warships." she said. "Well, that's something to shoot for. So what can you do to get started on that?"

"Actually, I think I have just the thing to help us with that." Marbles said, pulling out a roll of paper and taking it to a nearby table.

As everyone gathered around the table to see, Marbles removed the rubber band that was holding it, and unrolled it, and spread it out flat. On it were plans, depicting what appeared to be a ship.

Hardson grinned. "Yes, now we're getting somewhere!" she announced.

Marbles grinned sheepishly, as the council studied the plans in awe. "This is actually a little pet project of mine that I've been working on for awhile." he explained. "I came up with the idea and started working on the plans late during Hacker's campaign of chaos, with the intent that we could use this ship against him, but certain things came up that made me set the project aside. These are just preliminary plans that I've whipped up on short notice, and are far from complete. There's still a lot of planning and designing that needs to go into this, and even then, it's going to take some time to build a fully operation version of this ship." he paused, glancing at the plans. "But...this is war. And war calls for a warship, or something of the sort."

"Which this is?" a councilmember asked, tapping the plans with a finger.

"More or less." Marbles admitted. "Actually, it was intended to be a multi-purpose ship, a ship where it could double as both a craft of war and a craft of peace, with peace being the one we want to encourage the most. If and when this is built, it'll be among the largest cyberships ever constructed." he turned to Hardson. "This what you were suggesting, major?" he asked.

"More than that." Hardson said, who was studying the plans in greater detail than before, and was realizing just how massive a project this would be. "It's definitely ambitious enough. You might want to consider constructing a smaller ship for use in this war in the meantime, so that all of your defenses don't spiral around this ship that won't even be built for sometime still, but yes, this works."

"There's only one problem." Marbles said. "Part of the reason I stopped working on it was because of the manpower it would require. Were it just us, the cyborgs, working on this ship, it would quite likely take years. And the raw materials that would be needed as well are...well...massive. I'm not sure we can come up with it all quick enough for use in this war. In short, we need help."

Hardson caught on quick. "Help from us, from the Real World." she said, motioning to herself.

"Yes." Marbles said. "You can provide with that needed manpower and the materials too, the ones that can be found in both of our dimensions. With some guidance, you could probably create some of the others as well. You can also help provide the manpower hunt down and collect the materials we will only ever get from Cyberspace."

"Okay, but the problem with that is that our little...relationship...between you and the CSEDS doesn't work like that." Hardson said. "We can only dedicate so much materials and so much man power. Most of that has gone into the CSC already, and that's just for quick defense and for little skirmishes. It was really designed with Hacker in mind, and not a war like what Tehran wants. We're not going to have enough left over to dedicate to this."

"There must be something you can do." one of the councilmembers asked. "Explain the situation to them. _Make _them see how much we need that added help."

Hardson thought for a long moment. "There might actually be something I can do." she said. "But it's going to require something more than the CSEDS. Something more than this little agreement we have, where we can come and explore your world while we provide some minimal defense."

Marbles saw were this was going. "An alliance." he said. "A full and official alliance between Cyberspace and the Real World."

"I know you've all been quite leery about the idea before now, and for good reason, but..." Harson shrugged, "...if you really want to make this ship you're proposing a reality, guys, then I think you're not going to have much choice."

Marbles was silent for a moment, then nodded, grinning. "Then so be it."

He extended his hand to Hardson. Hardson accepted it, and they shook on it. A moment of silence fell as everyone savored the sensation of this important event.

"It's going to take awhile to sort this all out, and get things set up." Hardson said once the shake was over. "In the meantime, though, CS-1 and the other CS teams can go out and search for the materials you need. You just give the word, and we're there."

"Well, there's some planning to do still before we can get too serious with that, but I'll have a list composed as quickly as possible." Marbles said. "Speaking of which, though, I need to request that you do something first."

"And what's that, doc?"

"If CS-1, your team, is going to help find materials to build this ship, then you're going to need a new member. Someone _other _than a soldier and militant."

Hardson frowned. "You mean I have to put a _scientist _on my team?" she asked, slightly dismayed.

"A scientist would be extremely useful for such missions." Marbles said. "An all-military team would be of little use in such a situation, so unless you would rather not go on missions to find these materials..."

"No, no, I said I would help with that, so I should keep my word." Hardson said with a sigh. "The CSEDS has been urging me to add a scientist to my team anyway." she paused, then brightened as she suddenly got an idea. "Actually, I might just know exactly who to put on."

* * *

"I have completed my scan." Motherboard announced suddenly. "With the exception of some sleep depravation and lack of nourishment recently, you are all physically fine. I would suggest you take the rest of the day easy to rest and feed yourselves, but otherwise you are free to go."

"Finally!" McKinsey exclaimed, jumping off the examining cot in the infirmary and stretching. "I'm ready to do something else now! Besides, I _told _you nothing bad happened to us while we were on Cyantis. Wasn't my word enough?"

"You can't blame her for double checking." Alex said innocently. "We were prisoners of war for more than a day."

"He's right, a whole number of things could've happened to us without our knowing during that time." Alex's dad agreed. "Cyantis was restored in under a day while we were there. In the process of doing so, we might have been exposed to something that could've harmed us humans, but not cyborgs."

"Yeah, remember when Lieutenant Sheppard from CS-4 caught that weird cyberflu that nearly killed him?" Davidson asked, also hopping off the cot. "It doesn't normally affect cyborgs that much, but because we're not _like _cyborgs, it would've affected us a whole lot worse had it spread throughout the CSC."

"Correct." Motherboard confirmed. "In fact, Lieutenant Sheppard probably would have died had he not been taken back to the Real World to allow the elements of your dimension eradicate the virus due to overexposure."

"Ah, I still say it wasn't necessary." McKinsey pressed, waving his hand dismissively at Motherboard's screen. "Who's idea was that anyway, your's?"

"It was actually mine, McKinsey, Motherboard was acting on my orders." Hardson said, as she entered unannounced into the room, catching McKinsey off guard. "If you have any problems with that, take it up with the CSEDS chief of staff, but I doubt he'll agree with you. He hasn't been keen on taking any chances after that incident with the cyberflu."

McKinsey saluted anxiously. "Sorry, ma'am." he said.

"Anyway, I came to talk to...er..." Hardson pointed a finger at Alex's dad for a moment, trying to remember his name but failing. "...er...you, Alex's dad."

"Dr. Lewis Conners." Alex's dad offered helpfully.

"Right." Hardson said, nodding. "Anyway, Dr. Conners, I heard that you helped my men escape Cyantis."

"Well, it _was _my idea, but it was really more of a group effort than anything." Conners said. "And that was just to free ourselves. Inez was really the one who got us off the site."

"Still, you proved to be quite capable of handling yourself in such a situation, and that's just the thing I need." Hardson said, folding her arms with a grin. "I also need to put a scientist on my team due to various reasons, so it might as well be you."

And with that, she turned and left again, leaving everyone else a little shocked at this announcement, save Alex, who hadn't quite made the right connections yet.

Finally, Motherboard spoke. "Congratulations, doctor." she said.

"Yeah, welcome to CS-1, bud." Davidson said, giving Alex's dad a pat on the back.

"Um, thanks." Conners replied with a sheepish grin. "Glad to be aboard."


	26. Where You Belong

Last chapter! Mostly a Matt/Inez centric chapter, and resolves a few loose ends, while leaving a few others open still. Like I said in a few PMs at the start of this story, this will be the last Cyberchase fanfic I will write for awhile, as I'm ready to take a break. But, once that break is done, I will continue it again. :)

26.

Where You Belong

Stationed in a permanent orbit around Control Central, the monument continued on its constant, circling path, sparkling like it always should. Standing on the balcony that surrounded it was currently only two people, although one of them was unaware of the presence of the second. This person was too busy studying the monument, noting its dimensions, its reflectiveness, and most importantly, the plaque that hung on it's base, saying:

Inez Garcia

May She Rest In Peace

Managing a bemused grin, Inez ran a finger along the side of the plaque, genuinely flattered that her friends would go to such lengths to honor her death. A death that turned out to have never happened, but the thought still very, very, much counted. Still grinning, she sat down, curled up her knees, and just stared at the monument.

"So," the second person spoke suddenly, standing a couple feet behind her, "Do you like it?"

Inez turned to look at Matt, unsurprised he was there. "Yes." she said, her grin getting bigger. "Although, I don't know whatever you guys intend to do with it now. I mean, it's kind of pointless to have a monument respecting someone's death when that someone turned out to have never died at all."

"The Grand Cyber Council is thinking the same thing." Matt agreed, stepping over to stand beside her. "Dr. Marbles told me that someone has already inquired about it, and asked if it could be dismantled. Fortunately for you, it was later reasoned that with the war with Tehran beginning, it's not exactly wise to waste time and resources worrying about a monument that isn't really causing any harm at all." he paused, sitting down now. "Besides, Motherboard flatly said no to the idea anyway. She wants it to keep standing."

"Why?" Inez asked. "Seeing that I'm not dead, its kind of pointless to keep something around that salutes to it."

"A minor detail." Matt said. "Motherboard is actually thinking of swapping that plaque out with another, so that it instead salutes the fact that you're still alive." he gave her a grin. "Besides, we'd rather have that anyway."

Inez laughed. "I'll bet you do." she said, shaking her head. "It's so good to be back, too. The neutramatter dimension may be a fascinating place, but it's no home." she gazed out into the depths of Cyberspace. "I really missed this. I really did. So peaceful and calm...even now. You'd hardly think that it's already beginning to be embroiled into a deadly war. Even so, I still missed it." she looked down at Matt. "And I missed all of you."

"We missed having you around." Matt said. "It just...wasn't quite the same without you." he sighed. "You know, just before this all started, I tried looking for someone to replace you on the gang."

"Did you really." Inez said, not looking surprised.

"Uh-huh." Matt said. "I ultimately failed, though. What I needed was you, and no one could ever try and replace you. And, seeing how things turned out in the end, I'm glad I didn't go through with it."

Inez merely shrugged, having nothing to comment on the matter. They were both silent for a moment.

"You know, while we're all more than glad to see you back, Inez, there are a couple of people you would be even more pleased to see you." Matt said.

Inez nodded. "I know, my parents." she said. "Do they know what's happened?"

"Mother B explained the situation in an e-mail while you were still in the neutramatter dimension." Matt said. "She got no response, so she connected with them and spoke with them personally, as well as give them a much needed update. Reportedly, they are ecstatic to see you again, and are waiting very anxiously for you to come home."

"Of course they are." Inez mumbled.

Matt gave her a look. "You don't seem to excited about that." he noted.

"Oh, don't get me wrong, I love my parents, and desperately want to see them again as well, but..." she trailed off for a moment. "A part of me is afraid that if I go home, they'll never let me set foot out of it again, given all that has happened. I mean, you know what they're like Matt. Of all the people who know about what we do in Cyberspace, they are the ones who are the most paranoid about the danger. And for a full month, they thought I was dead and gone, only to now find out that by some sheer stroke of luck that it was all false. That you guys were wrong, and that I really _was _alive. And now with a deadly war about to begin in Cyberspace and that danger about to increase tenfold, there's no way they're ever going to let me come back."

Matt was silent for a long moment as he thought about this.

"Maybe you're right." he admitted. "Maybe they won't let you have any part with Cyberspace anymore. I mean, they have that right, and they do have the power to do it with. But Inez...they are your parents. They deserve to have a chance to have a say in this matter, and you know it, otherwise you wouldn't have anything to fear about this. And besides, I don't know if the rest of us will care." he chuckled. "Right now, we're just happy enough to see you alive and back where you belong."

"Where I belong." Inez repeated. She nodded. "Of course, Matt, you're right." she agreed. "But I don't know if _I'd _be happy. Visiting Cyberspace and helping protect it has become part of my life now. Without it, it'd feel...empty."

There was another long moment of silence.

"Inez, no matter what happens, I want you to know that we're all your friends." Matt said. "And no matter what, cyborg or otherwise, we will continue being your friends, through thick and thin, no matter what happens." he then shrugged. "Besides, how are you ever going to know what's going to happen if you don't ever do it?"

Inez grinned. "Yeah, how could I?" she asked. She was silent for a moment. "Well," standing up and dusting herself off. "No use prolonging the inevitable."

"You ready to go, then?" Matt asked, also standing.

Inez took a deep breath. "Yeah." she said, nodding.

Matt nodded, and pulled out his SKWAK pad. "Motherboard, one portal for Inez's house in the Real World please." he said into it.

A moment later, the familiar pink portal swirled into existence on the monument's platform. Inez took a step towards it, then hesitated. Matt then walked up to stand beside her, taking her hand.

"Mind if I come with you?" he asked politely.

Inez grinned. "Thanks Matt." she said.

And with that, she leaned over and kissed him on the cheek. Matt blushed, but was grinning like there was no tomorrow now. Grinning brightly at each other, they then stepped into the portal, ready to face whatever the future had in store for them next.

Together.


End file.
